Clinical nutrition ESPEN
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Clinical nutrition ESPEN · Oct 2021
Observational StudyMalnutrition Universal Screening Tool and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment Short Form and their predictive validity in hospitalized patients.
Malnutrition screening is a first step in the nutrition care process for hospitalized patients, to identify those at risk of malnutrition and associated worse outcome, preceding further assessment and intervention. Frequently used malnutrition screening tools including the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) mainly screen for characteristics of malnutrition, while the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment Short Form (PG-SGA SF) additionally includes risk factors for development of malnutrition, yielding a higher percentage of patients at risk. To investigate whether this translates into higher risk of worse outcome, we aimed to determine the predictive validity of MUST and PG-SGA SF for prolonged hospitalization >8 days, readmission, and mortality <6 months after hospital discharge. ⋯ Whereas high malnutrition risk by MUST was only associated with mortality, PG-SGA SF was associated with higher risk of prolonged hospitalization, readmission, and mortality. In patients considered as low risk by MUST, high malnutrition risk by PG-SGA SF was also predictive of worse outcome. Our findings support the use of PG-SGA SF in routine care to identify patients at risk of malnutrition and worse outcome, and enable proactive interventions.