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Validation and impact of paediatric malnutrition screening tool in hospitalised children on awareness of medical staff and health‐related outcomes
Author(s) -
Marderfeld Luba,
Rub Gal,
Hodik Gavriel,
Poraz Irit,
Hartman Corina,
Ashkenazi Shai,
Shamir Raanan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
nutrition and dietetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1747-0080
pISSN - 1446-6368
DOI - 10.1111/1747-0080.12529
Subject(s) - malnutrition , medicine , intervention (counseling) , confidence interval , receiver operating characteristic , pediatrics , nursing
Aims This study aimed to evaluate the use of the Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Paediatrics (STAMP) among children admitted in a paediatric hospital, and assess its impact on the nutritional status awareness among the medical staff and on health outcomes at discharge. Methods STAMP performed by nurses on admission was compared with full nutritional assessment performed by a dietitian. Area under the receiving operating characteristic (AUROC) curve was used to evaluate validity of the tool. To assess how the tool affected awareness among the staff, information on nutritional status was compared prior to and following the intervention period. Therewith, health outcomes at discharge were compared for the children who had been screened by STAMP and the children who had not. Results The analysis was performed for a total of 60 children (38 boys, 63%). The mean age was 7.8 ± 4.7 years. Malnutrition was found in 16% of patients, segregating equally between acute and chronic malnutrition. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 95.7% (95% confidence interval, CI = 85.75–98.83%), 76.9% (95% CI = 49.74–91.82%), 93.7 and 83.3, respectively. AUROC was 0.863 (95% CI = 0.72–1). There was no difference either in malnutrition awareness among the medical staff before and after the intervention period or in health outcomes at discharge. Conclusions STAMP is a valid tool for malnutrition screening in hospitalised children; however, its use does not influence admitted patients’ nutritional status awareness among the medical staff nor their outcomes at discharge.