Hospital-acquired malnutrition tied to longer length of stay, cognitive impairment, fall

Adult inpatients with hospital-acquired malnutrition (HAM) are more likely to have long length of stay (LOS), be transferred between hospital, and develop a cognitive impairment, pressure injury, or fall during admission, reveals a study.

“Incidence of HAM, defined as malnutrition first diagnosed >14 days after admission, was in the low end of the published range,” the authors noted.

A total of 17,717 patients with >14 days LOS (mean age, 63 years; 45 percent female; mean LOS, 24 [range, 15–606] days) were eligible for analysis. HAM incidence was 1 percent in long-stay patients, with an overall malnutrition prevalence of 18 percent.

Patients with HAM tended to stay in the hospital about 26 days longer than those who were malnourished on admission or not malnourished (p<0.001). HAM was associated with longer LOS; patient interhospital transfer from or to another hospital; or experiencing cognitive impairment, pressure injury, or a fall while in the hospital (odds ratio, 1.006–3.6; p<0.05).

In this study, the authors carried out a retrospective clinical audit of hospital data from adult patients (aged ≥18 years) with LOS >14 days in a Metro South Health hospital between July 2015 and January 2019. Dietitians reviewed medical records of patients clinically coded with malnutrition to determine HAM incidence.

The authors conducted univariate and logistic regression analysis to determine patient descriptors associated with HAM relative to those not malnourished or those malnourished on admission.