Infusion versus needs of enteral nutritional therapy of patients admitted to an university Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Enteral Nutritional Therapy (ENT) is seen as a strategy to prevent loss of body mass, reduce the severity of the disease, decrease complications, shorten the period of hospitalization and favorably impact the results of hospitalized patients. However, patients often receive lower energy and protein values than needed. Objective: To evaluate the infusion versus the needs of ENT of patients in a university hospital. Materials and methods: Descriptive, analytical, longitudinal study with patients in ENT, hospitalized from May to November 2017. Sociodemographic, clinical, anthropometric data related to ENT and nutritional screening information were collected according to the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS-2002). Nutritional requirements were estimated according to the recommendations of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. In the statistical analysis, the Statistical Package for the Social Science, v. 21.0, considering p <0.05. Results: 55 patients, 67.3% were eutrophic by the Body Mass Index (BMI), 76.4% had malnutrition by the mid-arm circumference (%MAC) and 96.4% were at nutritional risk by the NRS-2002. The prevalence of inadequacy in the first 72 hours of ENT was 44% and 62% for energy and protein, respectively. When testing the correlation of BMI and MAC with the energy-protein adequacy of ENT, a significant inverse association was observed in relation to energy adequacy (r²= -0.254; p= 0.045; r²= -0.362; p = 0.003) and protein (r²= -0.281; p= 0.019; r²= -0.492; p<0.000). Conclusion: In view of the inadequacy of the energy-protein offer, it is suggested that strategies for continuing education and training for the multidisciplinary team should be implemented to ensure an adequate nutritional supply.