[MALNUTRITION IN THE ELDERLY PATIENT TO HOSPITAL ADMISSION, AN OLD PROBLEM UNSOLVED].

OBJETIVE

to determine the prevalence of malnutrition in patients aged 65 years or more at admission and factors associated with its presence. Analyze excess hospital stay (EHS), economic impact and premature readmission rate associated with hospital malnutrition in elderly patient.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

retrospective study conducted at the University Hospital Reina Sofía. All patients aged 65 years or older admitted to internal medicine in 2011. The sample size was calculated taking into account the income of the previous year, and considering a prevalence of malnutrition of 50% with a 95% and included error of 5%. To define the degree of malnutrition nutritional control tool (CONUT), which establishes a score based on albumin, total cholesterol and lymphocyte determination was used. To determine the factors associated with the presence of moderate to severe malnutrition analysis of multivariate logistic regression was performed. For each patient the EHS, premature readmissions and the associated cost to EHS was calculated. A threshold of statistical significance of 0.05 was used for all analyzes and were performed with SPSS v15.0.

RESULTS

310 patients, of whom 54.2% were women were included, the mean age was 80.1 years (SD: 6.8), ranging between 65 and 95 years. Regarding diagnosis at admission 27.4% were respiratory diseases, 22.6% of the circulatory and digestive 11.6%. The median Charlson index was 2.0, found that 36.8% of patients had high comorbidity. The most prevalent chronic diseases were diabetes mellitus (44.2%), chronic kidney disease (25.2%) and dementia (10.6). Regarding the CONUT, 75.8% of patients met the criteria of malnutrition: 42.6% mild, 28.7% moderate and severe 4.5%, of which only 46.6% had some nutritional support during admission. Factors associated with the presence of moderate to severe malnutrition were female gender (OR: 1.7; 95%: 1.1 - 2.8), age over 80 years (OR: 2.0, IC 95%: 1.2 - 3.5), and dementia (OR: 2.4; IC 95%:1.2 - 5.2). No association with comorbidity or with other chronic diseases was found. Regarding the EHS (days) differences between patients with moderate to severe malnutrition (4.7; IC 95%: 2.3 - 7.1) and normally nourished (-0.1; IC 95%: -1.4 - 1.2) (p = 0.001) were found, but were not for cases of mild malnutrition (1.6, 95%: 0.5-2.8) (p = 0.07).Regarding the rate of premature readmission in malnourished patients was 28/235 (11.9%). The cost associated with EHS / 100 patients was € 195 479.4 for moderate malnutrition, mild malnutrition € 73 484.8, and normally nourished patients represented a saving of € 12 353.

CONCLUSIONS

hospital malnutrition in elderly patients remains an unsolved problem, given the high prevalence found, associated to an excess of hospital stay and increased hospital costs, especially in patients with moderate to severe malnutrition. The CONUT is a nutritional screening tool very useful for the speed and validity of their results, and allows detecting patients at risk or nutritional alert without lead to increased costs.