Nutritional status of geriatric trauma patients following discharge from hospital: A retrospective study

摘要

Background: Malnutrition amongst older adults is highly prevalent in the hospital setting. However, there is limited data available on nutritional status following discharge. The current assumption is that those showing improvement in food intake and weight stability during hospitalisation will continue to improve post-discharge. Aim: To assess this assumption and identify changes in dietary intake and weight following discharge. Methods: This retrospective cohort study used convenience sampling to recruit n = 13 participants aged >65 years, who had been discharged from a hospital trauma unit. Participants were contacted by a dietitian 3-15 months post-discharge via phone call using a standardised telephone interview to compare dietary intake and weight changes (equal, increased or decreased) between the following time periods; habitual pre-admission (weight only), pre-admission, immediately post-discharge and at time of survey. Nutrition impact symptoms (NIS) immediately post-discharge and at time of survey were identified and compared. Results: All participants reported equal dietary intake at time of survey compared with pre-admission. More than half of participants reported they had either returned to pre-admission weight (37.5%) or greater (25%) at time of survey. Immediately post-discharge, 76.9% reported experiencing at least one NIS, with 23.1% experiencing NIS at time of survey (P = 0.016). Conclusions: Patients moving towards weight stability and habitual dietary intake immediately prior to discharge do not require additional dietetic intervention. Further research that is prospectively designed is required to confirm the implications for clinical practice due to the small sample size of this study and recall bias.