Abstract

Purpose
Several studies that focused on hospital malnutrition have reported that more than 40% of hospitalized patients have nutritional risk factors, and there is a high prevalence of hospital malnutrition. People with a more severe malnutrition status had a longer length of hospital stay and higher hospital costs. Therefore, the net result from early nutritional support may be improved organ function, decreased infection, reduced morbidity and mortality and decrease the hospital stay and cost. Methods: We investigated the patients who received tube feeding or parenteral nutrition for more than 3 days. We recommended the nutritional assessment, the patients' requirements, the route of feeding and the proper formula to the clinicians. Some of them followed our suggestion and some didn't. Thus, we divided groups into two subgroups according to this. The clinical outcomes of the two groups were compared. Results: There were no significant differences in the clinical outcomes between the two groups. However, the patients who received enteral feeding increased from 10% up to 70% in the experiment group. In spite that the gastrointestinal route could have been used, only 44.4% of the patients in the control group received enteral feeding. Conclusion: More rapid and adequate nutritional support through enteral nutrition must be considered to produce the effective clinical outcomes in critically ill patients. The patients who require nutritional support need continuous follow up care and monitoring by a nutritional support team (NST). (KJPEN 2010;3(1):40-44)

• Keywords: Nutrition Support Team, Malnutrition, Critically ill patients, Enteral nutrition