How much of the prescribed volume of enteral feed does the hospitalized patient actually receive?

Abstract

This pilot study was carried out to establish how many interruptions occurred to patients receiving continuous enteral feeding regimens and the associated percentage of feed losses. It measured how much of a prescribed volume of feed patients actually received during a period of enteral nutritional support. The data for 15 patients (medical and surgical) who were maintained on a standard feeding regimen for a minimum period of five days (range 5–10 days) were analysed. All feeds were administered using Abbott Flexiflo enteral feeding pumps. The patients' weight and serum albumin values were recorded prior to, and at the end of, the study. Although all patients received significantly less feed than had been prescribed there were no significant changes in either of these variables.

What you think is not what they get: significant discrepancies between prescribed and administered doses of tube feeding

“…It is also important to note that none of the studies in the literature study ( 12 – 20 ) were blinded. For instance, medical and nursing staff were informed of patients who were included in the study of Robertson ( 19 ) .…”

“…Energy calculation of adequate feeding (administered v. prescribed) has mostly been presented in kJ/d ( 12 , 14 – 16 , 18 , 20 ) or ml/d ( 17 , 19 , 20 ) . Many studies do not take into account that the impact of differences in prescribed versus delivered feeding formulas in energy intake are mainly determined by the energy density of the formulation.…”

Investigation of the percentage of prescribed enteral nutrition actually delivered to hospitalized companion animals

“…There have been a number of investigations of tube feeding success in hospitalized human patients 33–39 . The percent of goal calories delivered was reported in 5 investigations and ranged from 61% to 96% 34–38 . In one of these investigations, a nutrition support service used a standard protocol for calculating feeding prescriptions 34 .…”

“…The percent of goal calories delivered was reported in 5 investigations and ranged from 61% to 96% 34–38 . In one of these investigations, a nutrition support service used a standard protocol for calculating feeding prescriptions 34 . In the other 4 investigations, physician prescribed orders were evaluated 35–38 .…”