Background
Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) is the reference method to identify hospital malnutrition. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (AND‐ASPEN) proposed a more objective consensus, but studies regarding its validity are still scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the concurrent and predictive validity of the AND‐ASPEN Consensus.
Methods
Prospective cohort conducted with hospitalized adult and elderly patients. At admission, general data were collected and patients were evaluated by SGA and AND‐ASPEN with and without handgrip strength (HGS) for nutrition diagnoses. Patients were followed up for collection of outcomes—length of hospital stay (LOS), in‐hospital death, readmission, and mortality within 6 months after being discharged. Concurrent and predictive validity were tested.
Results
Six hundred patients (55.7 ± 14.8 years, 51.3% males) were evaluated. The median of LOS was 10.0 (5.018.0) days and in‐hospital mortality was 2.7%. SGA identified 34.0% and AND‐ASPEN 34.6% of patients as malnourished. AND‐ASPEN had substantial agreement with SGA (κ = 0.690) and satisfactory accuracy (AUC = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.810.88). Malnutrition defined by AND‐ASPEN predicted about 1.4 times higher risk of prolonged LOS (95% CI, 1.2–1.6) and hospital readmission (95% CI, 1.2–1.8), besides 5.0 times higher risk of hospital death (95% CI, 1.3–18.8) and 6 months' death (95% CI, 2.6–9.9), in an adjusted analysis. The validity of AND‐ASPEN without HGS was also satisfactory.
Conclusion
AND‐ASPEN can be used for malnutrition diagnoses, even without HGS because it has satisfactory concurrent and predictive validity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.