Hospital Malnutrition in Pediatric Patients: A Review

Abstract

Malnutrition is common in pediatric inpatients, and nutritional status often deteriorates in the hospital. Although the prevalence of hospital malnutrition is high, this condition is ignored and consequently, not treated. The first step to fight malnutrition knows how to identify patients at greater risk of this condition. One way to identify them is by using risk screening tools, which should be used in all inpatients. Six screening tools have been created for pediatric patients, but none of these tools stood out. Nevertheless, the STRONGKids has been the most studied tool in many countries because of its ease and speed of use. In Brazil only STRONGKids has been translated and adapted, but just one study assessed its accuracy in our population, obtaining modest results. Hence, STRONGKids should be considered a preliminary tool, and its correlation with clinical data requires investigation.