Does documentation in nursing records of nutritional screening on admission to hospital reflect the use of evidence-based practice guidelines for malnutrition?

Changes in the availability of clinical practice guidelines for malnutrition: A 6-y multicenter study

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to examine the availability of clinical practice guidelines for malnutrition in hospitals over a period of 6 y and the subsequent use of nutritional interventions in malnourished patients.

METHODS

This study was conducted as a secondary data analysis of data that were collected from 2012 to 2017 in a quantitative, cross-sectional, multicenter study called the National Prevalence Measurement Quality of Care (LPZ). Data from 15 hospitals and 5650 participating patients were analyzed.

RESULTS

The availability of clinical practice guidelines for malnutrition at the institutions increased from 6.7% in 2012 to 100% in 2017 (P < 0.001). The control of compliance to the guidelines increased from 28.6% to 85.7% (P < 0.001) and the documentation of malnutrition risk improved from 63.1% to 87.5% (P = 0.008). In 2017, the intervention "referral to dietitian" was used 8.3% more often (P < 0.001). The number of patients who did not receive any intervention decreased from 70% in 2012 to 55.6% in 2017 (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The availability of guidelines on malnutrition increased in participating hospitals over the 6-y study period. Regular controls of adherence to the guidelines positively correlated with their availability. More interventions to treat malnutrition were carried out in 2017. The use of clinical practice guidelines in this study was associated with more interventions treating malnutrition.

Adherence to hospital nutritional status monitoring and reporting guidelines

AIMS OF THE STUDY

Despite the widespread existence of guidelines regarding undernutrition monitoring and reporting, there is scarce information whether they are followed. We aimed to evaluate the adherence to guidelines regarding undernutrition monitoring and reporting as well as their determinants in a university hospital.

METHODS

Retrospective analysis of discharged patients with data on Nutritional Risk Screening score (NRS-2002) from the department of internal medicine of the Lausanne University Hospital for years 2013-14. Adherence to the hospital monitoring guidelines, i.e.: 1) discharged patients with NRS-2002 score≥3 should have prealbumin levels measured, and 2) discharged patients with prealbumin levels<0.20 g/l should be rechecked 7 days afterwards, was assessed. Reporting of nutritionally 'at-risk' status in the discharge letter was also assessed. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine potential determinants of adherence to guidelines.

RESULTS

Of the 2,539 discharged patients with NRS-2002 data, 1,605 (63.0%) were nutritionally 'at-risk'. Complete adherence to the monitoring guideline was observed in 238 (14.8%) of 'at-risk' patients. After multivariable analysis, adherence to the first step of monitoring guideline was associated with older age (≥ 80 years) [OR (95% CI): 2.03 (1.29-3.18)], high comorbidity index [1.36 (1.05-1.77)], and nutritional management [5.57 (4.38-7.07)]. Nutritional management was also associated with adherence to the second step of monitoring [3.98 (2.33-6.78)]. Adherence to the reporting guideline was observed in 343 (21.4%) of 'at-risk' patients. Multivariable analysis showed that adherence to the reporting guideline was associated with NRS-2002 score>4 [1.97 (1.47-2.64)], nutritional management [3.80 (2.85-5.07)], and adherence to the monitoring guideline [3.33 (2.35-4.71)].

CONCLUSIONS

Our results show a poor adherence to guidelines regarding undernutrition monitoring and reporting, possibly due to lack of training, staff, and time.

Nursing Minimum Data Sets for documenting nutritional care for adults in primary healthcare: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE

To identify all published nutritional screening instruments that have been validated in the adult population in primary healthcare settings and to report on their psychometric validity.

INTRODUCTION

Within health care, there is an urgent need for the systematic collection of nursing care data in order to make visible what nurses do and to facilitate comparison, quality assurance, management, research and funding of nursing care. To be effective, nursing records should accurately and comprehensively document all required information to support safe and high quality care of patients. However, this process of documentation has been criticized from many perspectives as being highly inadequate. A Nursing Minimum Data Set within the nutritional area in primary health care could therefore be beneficial in order to support nurses in their daily documentation and observation of patients.

INCLUSION CRITERIA

The review considered studies that included adults aged over 18 years of any gender, culture, diagnosis and ethnicity, as well as nutritional experts, patients and their relatives. The concepts of interest were: the nature and content of any nutritional screening tools validated (regardless of the type of validation) in the adult population in primary healthcare; and the views and opinions of eligible participants regarding the appropriateness of nutritional assessment were the concept of interest. Studies included must have been conducted in primary healthcare settings, both within home care and nursing home facilities.

METHODS

This scoping review used a two-step approach as a preliminary step to the subsequent development of a Nursing Minimum Data Set within the nutritional area in primary healthcare: i) a systematic literature search of existing nutritional screening tools validated in primary health care; and ii) a systematic literature search on nutritional experts opinions on the assessment of nutritional nursing care of adults in primary healthcare as well as the views of patients and their relatives. Multiple databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, Swemed+, MedNar, CDC, MEDION, Health Technology Assessment Database, TRIP database, NTIS, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Google Scholar, Current Contents) were searched from their inception to September 2016.

RESULTS

The results from the studies were extracted using pre-developed extraction tools to all three questions, and have been presented narratively and by using figures to support the text. Twenty-nine nutritional screening tools that were validated within a primary care setting, and two documents on consensus statements regarding expert opinion were identified. No studies on the patients or relatives views were identified.

CONCLUSIONS

The nutritional screening instruments have solely been validated in an over-55 population. Construct validity was the type of validation most frequently used in the validation process covering a total of 25 of the 29 tools. Two studies were identified in relation to the third review question. These two documents are both consensus statement documents developed by experts within the geriatric and nutritional care field. Overall, experts find it appropriate to: i) conduct a comprehensive geriatric assessment, ii) use a validated nutritional screening instrument, and iii) conduct a history and clinical diagnosis, physical examination and dietary assessment when assessing primarily the elderly's nutritional status in primary health care.

Factors contributing to serious adverse events in nursing homes

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To identify the most common serious adverse events that occurred in nursing homes and their most frequent contributing factors to the improvement of safe nursing care.

BACKGROUND

There is a need to improve safe nursing care in nursing homes. Residents are often frail and vulnerable with extensive needs for nursing care. A relatively minor adverse event in nursing care can cause serious injury that could have been preventable.

DESIGN

This was a retrospective study, with a total sample of data regarding adverse events (n = 173) in nursing homes, concerning nursing care reported by healthcare providers in Sweden to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate. The reports were analysed with content analysis, and the frequencies of the adverse events, and their contributing factors, were described with descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Medication errors, falls, delayed or inappropriate intervention and missed nursing care contributed to the vast majority (89%) of the serious adverse events. A total of 693 possible contributing factors were identified. The most common contributing factors were (i) lack of competence, (ii) incomplete or lack of documentation, (iii) teamwork failure and (iv) inadequate communication.

CONCLUSIONS

The contributing factors frequently interacted yet they varied between different groups of serious adverse events. The resident's safety depends on the availability of staff's competence as well as adequate documentation about the resident's condition. Lack of competence was underestimated by healthcare providers.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Registered nurses and assistant nurses need to have awareness of contributing factors to adverse events in nursing care. A holistic approach to improve patient safety in nursing homes requires competence of the staff, safe environments as well as resident's and relative's participation.

Documentation and communication of nutritional care for elderly hospitalized patients: perspectives of nurses and undergraduate nurses in hospitals and nursing homes

Background

Nutritional care is a basic human right for all people. Nevertheless, undernourishment is known to be a frequent and serious health care problem among elderly hospitalized patients in Western Europe. Nutritional documentation contributes to ensuring proper nutritional treatment and care. Only a few studies have explored how nurses document nutritional care in hospitals, and between hospitals and nursing homes. Available research suggests that documentation practices are unsatisfactory. The aim of this study was to explore how nurses document nutritional treatment and care for elderly patients in hospitals and how nurses and undergraduate nurses communicate information about patients’ nutritional status when elderly patients are transferred between hospital and nursing homes.

Methods

A qualitative study was conducted using a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. Data was collected in focus group interviews with 16 nurses in one large university hospital, and 11 nurses and 16 undergraduate nurses in five nursing homes associated with the university hospital. Participants from the university hospital represented a total of seven surgical and medical wards, all of which transferred patients to the associated nursing homes. The catchment area of the hospital and the nursing homes represented approximately 10% of the Norwegian population in heterogenic urban and rural municipalities. Data were coded and analysed thematically within the three contexts: self-understanding, critical common sense, and theoretical understanding.

Results

The results were summarized under three main themes 1) inadequate documentation of nutritional status on hospital admission, 2) inadequate and unsystematic documentation of nutritional information during hospital stay, 3) limited communication of nutritional information between hospital and nursing homes. The three main themes included seven sub-themes, which reflected the lack of nutritional screening and unsystematic documentation on admission and during hospital stay. Further the sub-themes elucidated poor exchange of information between hospital and nursing homes regarding the nutritional status of patients.

Conclusion

Overall, the documentation of nutritional treatment and care for elderly patients was inadequate in the hospital and between health care settings. Inappropriate documentation can create a negative nutritional spiral that leads to increased risk of severe health related complications for elderly patients. Moreover, it hinders nutritional follow-up across health care settings.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12912-016-0193-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Underweight and malnutrition in home care: A multicenter study

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to provide representative figures about the prevalence of underweight and malnutrition among home care clients, and to determine the associated risk factors and the provided nutritional nursing interventions.

METHODS

In 2012, a multicenter point prevalence study was conducted among 878 randomly selected clients from 100 randomly selected home care services across Germany. Following a standardized study protocol, demographics, nutritional assessments (Body Mass Index, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), Mini nutritional Assessment - short form (MNA-sf), nurses' clinical judgment on nutritional status) and interventions were assessed. Common nutritional risk factors for underweight and malnutrition were analyzed in a logistic regression model.

RESULTS

Malnutrition figures varied between 4.8% (MNA-sf) and 6.8% (MUST), underweight between 8.7% (BMI < 20 kg/m(2)) and 10.2% (clinical judgment). Missing values were high in both malnutrition assessments (MNA-sf 48.8%, MUST 39.1%) due to a lack of information on many clients' loss of weight within the past 3-6 months. Regular weighing was performed in 33.6-57.3% of all clients, depending on weight and nutritional status. Mental overload (OR 8.1/4.4), needs help with feeding (OR 5.0/2.8) and loss of appetite (OR 3.6/3.9) were highly associated with malnutrition/underweight.

CONCLUSION

Malnutrition and underweight are important issues in home care clients. Regular weighing should be performed in all home care clients so that a potential weight loss can be detected in time.