Malnutrition and nutritional care in an Icelandic teaching hospital

Background: About 30% of hospital inpatients are at undernutrition (UN) risk and it is important that sufficient nutritional treatment and care is provided in order to avoid a decline in health. Aim: To explore the prevalence of UN risk, the associations between UN-risk and other factors, and describe the nutritional treatment/care towards those at UN-risk at an Icelandic teaching hospital. An additional aim was to evaluate the user friendliness of a nutritional screening tool. Methods: Inpatients (n=56; median age 69 years; 29 women) were assessed by eight nurses using the Minimal Eating Observation and Nutrition form – version II (MEONF-II), a recently developed nursing nutritional screening tool. Results: In total 23% (n=13) were at moderate/high UN-risk. The prevalence of overweight/obesity was 57%. Among patients at UN-risk, 61% received energy dense food, oral nutritional supplements, and/or artificial nutrition; this figure was 35% among those at no/low risk. MEONF-II total scores correlated with dependency in activities of daily living (rs, 0.350), and UN-risk categories correlated with tiredness (rs, 0.426). The MEONF-II was regarded as easy to use and relevant. Conclusion: There is a need for interventions connecting the nutritional screening with individualised nutritional treatment and care in order to narrow the gap between screening and intervention. The Icelandic version of the MEONF-II is perceived as user-friendly.