Nutritional risk screening and its clinical significance of infants with severe pneumonia / 中国实用护理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the nutritional risk of hospitalized infants with severe pneumonia and its relationship with clinical outcome. Methods Totally 113 infants with severe pneumonia admitted to pediatric intensive care unit (PICU)were enrolled in the study. Nutritional risks were screened by STRONGkids, and the nutritional were assessment with WHO Anthro. Clinical outcomes were recorded and analyzed, including mechanical ventilation, length of PICU stay, total hospital expenses, prognosis, and biochemical test index. Results A total of 44 infants (38.9％) had high nutritional risk, 49 (43.4％) had medium nutritional risk, 20 (17.7％) had low nutritional risk when they admitted to PICU. A total of 59 (52.2％) infants were malnourished when they admitted to PICU. There was a significant correlation between the degree of malnutrition and nutritional risk (r =0.574, P<0.01).The incidence of high nutritional risk was significantly higher in 28d～1year-old group than in 1～3 year-old group (χ2=20.46, P<0.01). Nearly 42.5％(48/113) of the children had congenital disease and had higher incidence of high nutritional risk (χ2=11.375, P=0.003) and higher incidence of malnutrition (χ2=10.083, P=0.001) than those without congenital disease. The rate of mechanical ventilation (P=0.028), the duration of mechanical ventilation (P<0.01), total hospital expenses (P=0.002) and the incidence of poor prognosis(P=0.014) were significantly higher in high nutritional risk group than the low nutritional risk group. The retinol binding protein in the high nutrition risk group was significantly lower than the low nutrition risk group (χ2=6.333, P=0.021). Conclusions High nutritional risk and malnutrition are common in infants with severe pneumonia. Malnutrition and nutritional risk are increased in patients less than 1 year old or suffering from congenital disease. Patients with high nutritional risk are more likely to have worse clinical outcomes. STRONGkids is a valid tool for nutritional risk screening in hospitalized children, and early nutrition support is recommended.