Nutritional Risk and Nutritional Care Practices in the Hospitalized Elderly (NUTRIELD)

January 12, 2015 updated by: Kari Almendingen, Oslo Metropolitan University

Nutritional Status and Care of Elderly People

The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of nutritional risk and examine nutritional care practices in the hospitalized elderly at one large university hospital in Norway.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Detailed Description

A cross-sectional study was designed and carried out at a university hospital in Norway. The study was developed by a collegium at a nursing bachelor education program in a multidisciplinary collaboration with representatives from the university hospital and other experts. Data on nutritional risk and nutritional care practices of elderly patients were collected by 173 second year nursing students at the university college in question who were undergoing their acute and clinical care practice studies on 20 wards at the university hospital. Nine nutritional screening days were conducted in the academic years 2011/2012 and 2012/2013. On the screening days the students filled in the questionnaire for each patient, including questions about age, gender, length of hospital stay, normal weight in recent months, weight, height, BMI, nutritional risk and nutritional care practices. The students measured weight and height whenever possible, and screened the patients for nutritional risk. Data were collected by using a stratified sampling technique along with adequate power calculations to improve the representativeness of the sample. The researchers received anonymously completed questionnaires and screening forms from the students and never met the patients.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

508

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

70 years and older (Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Probability Sample

Study Population

Patients were recruited from a large University hospital in Norway. The university hospital covers about 10% of the Norwegian population, providing healthcare services for approximately half a million people living in urban and rural municipalities. The patient population is thus heterogenic with respect to ethnicity and socioeconomic factors. All somatic wards having nursing students in acute care clinical studies in autumn 2011 were included in the study. The study sample comprised 14 of 16 medical and surgical somatic wards. Additionally, one rehabilitation ward, one specialized short time unit, one emergency medicine ward, and one cardio-monitoring ward were included.

Eligible patients were selected by the nursing students in cooperation with the ward nursing staff.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All elderly (≥70 yrs) patients admitted on the included wards at 08.00 am on the screening days were asked to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Terminal patients (assumed short-lived, <1 month), patients diagnosed with dementia and patients whom the ward staff found unfit to participate were excluded.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Nutritional risk
Time Frame: 9 screening days were conducted in 2011-2013
Patients was screened for nutritional risk on 9 screening days conducted in the academic years of 2011/2012 and 2012/2103. The Nutritional Risk Screening Tool 2002 (NRS2002) was employed to identify nutritional risk in the patients.
9 screening days were conducted in 2011-2013

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Nutritional care practices
Time Frame: 9 nutritional screening days were conducted in the period 2011-2013
Questions regarding the nutritional care practices concerned weight measurements on admission and then weekly, conduction of nutritional risk screening, coding of undernutrition diagnosis (E43, E44, or E46) in line with the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10), and initiation of nutritional measures.
9 nutritional screening days were conducted in the period 2011-2013

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Kari Almendingen, Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2011

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 31, 2013

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 31, 2013

First Posted (Estimate)

November 7, 2013

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

January 13, 2015

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 12, 2015

Last Verified

January 1, 2015

More Information

Terms related to this study

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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