Effect of malnutrition on length of hospital stay in children
Turkish Archives of Pediatrics, cilt.56, sa.1, ss.37-43, 2021 (ESCI, Scopus, TRDizin)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 56 Sayı: 1
- Basım Tarihi: 2021
- Doi Numarası: 10.14744/turkpediatriars.2020.46354
- Dergi Adı: Turkish Archives of Pediatrics
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.37-43
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Child, length of stay, malnutrition
- Sağlık Bilimleri Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Objective: To determine the prevalence of malnutrition in hospitalized pediatric patients, to provide a classification of patients with malnutrition, and to evaluate the effect of malnutrition on length of hospital stay. Material and Methods: The study included patients aged 5 months to 18 years who were hos-pitalized in the Department of Pediatrics of the Adana City Training and Research Hospital between May 1st, 2018, and December 31st, 2018. Bodyweight, height, mid-upper arm circumfer-ence, and triceps skinfold thickness were measured at the time of hospitalization, and age, sex, diagnosis, comorbid conditions, and length of stay for treatment were recorded. Results: Of 1009 patients, 44% were female and 56% were male, and the mean age was 59.9±58.6 (median age 32) months. The mean length of stay was 6.83±4.48 days. Malnutri-tion was determined in 46.9% of the patients according to the Gomez classification. The mean length of stay in patients without malnutrition was 6.31±3.86 days, compared with 7.39±5.04 days in patients with malnutrition (p<0.001). The length of stay increased with increasing de-grees of malnutrition (p<0.001). Conclusion: Malnutrition is often overlooked in hospitalized patients. Studies conducted in dif-ferent years that reported similar malnutrition rates indicated that this condition still existed as a significant health problem. In the evaluation of nutritional status in hospitalized patients, paying attention to malnutrition while addressing the main reason of hospitalization and incor-porating nutritional support into the treatment plan will decrease the length of stay and also reduce the rate of complications.