Presença de risco nutricional em pacientes admitidos em um hospital filantrópico

Abstract

Currently, malnutrition is considered an important public health problem, given its association with negative outcomes, in addition to the increase in morbidity and mortality. Specifically in the hospital environment, it negatively contributes to the patient's recovery, prolonging their length of stay in the hospital and, consequently, increasing the cost of their hospital stay (BEGHETO et al., 2008). When approaching the patient, the first signs of malnutrition are not easily detected and can be harmful to the patient if malnutrition is only detected in its most advanced stage, usually after several days of hospitalization (ELIA et al., 2005; POSTHAUER, 2006) . Because many patients do not show obvious signs of malnutrition upon admission to hospital, Barbosa & Barros suggest that identifying nutritional risk upon admission is as important as early diagnosis of malnutrition, thus preventing the worsening of the patient's initially adequate nutritional status (BARBOSA & BARROS, 2002).