An Oral Intake Screening Tool for Patients Receiving Non-Invasive Ventilation

This study aims to explore how the introduction of an oral intake screening tool can benefit patients requiring noninvasive ventilation. The Quality Care Commission has identified nutritional problems in hospital and there is much literature on the importance of nutrition when critically ill. Literature is short however concerning the specialized population of those requiring noninvasive ventilation and they are a high risk group of suffering from malnutrition.

This study will potentially benefit patients by improving their nutritional care through guided assessment and nurse training.

The study will use mixed methodology, a prospective cohort study and qualitative interviews. The prospective cohort study will collect data from patients prior to the tool introduction, the control group, and post the tool introduction, the exposure group. This will enable comparisons to be made between the exposure and the control groups.

Nurses will be interviewed in semi structured focus groups prior to tool introduction and post to identify themes and sub themes to give a deeper understanding of nutrition in hospital and to examine the use of the tool in practice.

Patients will be eligible if they are over 18 and requiring noninvasive ventilation and nurses will be eligible if they work on the high dependency unit. Patients will be visited daily and have four mid arm circumference measurements at day 1, day 3, day 7 and day 14. The other daily visits will involve collecting data, which is recorded as part of routine care.

Nurses will undergo 2 focus group interviews and a teaching session. The study will take place at St Mary's hospital funded by Imperial College London. The study will be split into two periods with a two week gap in between. Each period will last until 22 patient participants have been recruited.