Comparación de 3 herramientas de cribado nutricional para determinar el riesgo de desnutrición al ingreso hospitalario de niños de 2-10 años que acuden al Hospital de Niños Dr. Roberto Gilbert.

Abstract

Malnutrition is considered one of the main causes of prolonged hospital stay. It affects child development and growth. Malnutrition in hospitalized children can be prevented if children with risk of malnutrition are identified. The creation of guidelines and tools will help detect malnutrition at an early stage and prevent the development of severe adverse effects. The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of three nutritional risk screening (NRS) tools: Screening Tool for Risk of Impaired Nutritional Status and Growth (STRONGkids), Pediatric Yorkhill Malnutrition Score (PYMS) and Screening Tool for the Assessment for Malnutrition in Pediatrics (STAMP). The research involved 125 children aged 2-10 years during their first 48 hours of admission at Dr. Roberto Gilbert Hospital from October 2019 to December 2019. STAMP showed that 52% of patients were at low risk of malnutrition, 32.8% of them with medium risk and the remaining 15.2% with high risk. On the other hand, PYMS reflected that 42% had low risk, followed by 38.4% with high risk and 19.2% medium risk. Lastly, STRONGkids determined 78,4% cases with medium risk and the remaining 21.6% with high risk. STRONGKIDS performed better at detecting possible undernutrition risk than the other screening tools which allows to identify the prevalence of malnutrition risk in hospitalized children while preventing possible complications of nutritional conditions of the patients.