A SIMPLE AND RELIABLE TOOL FOR DETECTION OF NUTRITIONAL RISK IN HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS

Introduction: malnutrition in hospital associates with complications such a high rates of infections, increased length of stay, and increased economic costs. Hospitals require applying a simple and reliable tool for detection of nutritional risk. Objective: to evaluate the agreement between a screening tool used in a hospital and both MUST and SGA tools to determine the prevalence of nutritional risk. Methods: patients with a hospitalization period less than 36 hours were assessed with three nutritional screening tools. Kappa value was used to assess agreement between the tests; SGA was the gold standard. Results: the study included 100 patients (F=49, M=51) with a mean age of 49 years. MUST presented a good agreement with the SGA (kappa = 0.55). Conclusions: MUST presents the highest agreement with the gold standard; therefore, it must be used to screen nutritional status of hospitalized patients due to its simplicity, reliability, and reproducibility.