Comparison of Nursing Records and the Catholic Medical Center Nutritional Risk Screening as a Nutrition Screening Tool for Intensive Care Unit Patients

ABSTRACT

In the present study, we aimed to compare the results from nutritional risk screening based on nursing records with those using the Catholic Medical Center Nutritional Risk Screening (CMCNRS) tool. A cross-sectional study was performed involving 91 patients aged > or = 18 years from an intensive care unit. We collected general characteristics of the patients and nutrition screening was conducted for each patient by using computerized hospital program for the nursing records as well as the CMCNRS conducted by clinical dietitians. The subjects were aged 64.0 +/- 17.5 years, and 52 (57.1%) patients had a NPO (nothing by mouth) status. Neurological disease was the most common diagnosis (25.3%). Compared with the CMCNRS results from the clinical dietitians, the results for the nursing records had a sensitivity of 40.5% (95% CI 32.0-40.5) and a specificity of 100.0% (95% CI 92.8-100.0). The agreement was fair between the CMCNRS results obtained by clinical dietitians and the nursing records (k = 0.423). Analysis of the errors from the screening using the nursing records revealed significant differences for all subjective indicators (p < 0.001), compared with the CMCNRS by the clinical dietitians. Thus, after assessing the methods used for nutrition screening and the differences in the search results regarding malnourished status, we noted that the nursing records had a lower sensitivity than the screening by the CMCNRS.