Tools to identify consumption and waste of the hospital diet. Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: One of the factors that influences hospital malnutrition is the inability of the patient to eat properly. A low consumption of the hospital diet increases the risk of suffering health complications, in addition to generating an economic and environmental impact, as a result of the increase in food waste. Generating strategies aimed at mitigating this problem should be a priority for the health sector. Objective: Identify technical tools used to measure food consumption and/or waste in the hospital diet. Materials and methods: Systematic search for studies published in the EMBASE and MEDLINE databases through the Pubmed platform was conducted in February 2019, searching articles published in the last 20 years. We searched for controlled terms on hospital diet, food waste, and patient satisfaction. Results: 410 articles were found in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Twenty-one articles were selected for full-text analysis by meeting the selection criteria. Conclusions: The tools found for the measurement of food consumption were based mainly on weighing, and visual measurement either direct or by images; other approaches included questionnaires and multi-component methods, most of the tools did not discriminate the food component wasted.