NutritionDay: effective strategy for understanding nutritional risk factors and facilitating the implementation of nutritional care protocols - an analysis over the years

Abstract Background Hospital malnutrition is a global debilitating problem; therefore, the implementation of nutritional monitoring protocols is essential for its early diagnosis and translates into better care. NutritionDay emerged from the need to document the global malnutrition scenario to improve patient safety and the quality of nutritional care. Our objective was to analyze nutritional care data from a high-complexity hospital obtained through the NutritionDay and to compare these data between years and with the results of other institutions in order to identify areas for nutritional care improvement. Methods A one-day cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted at the NutritionDay global data collection date. The data were analyzed by comparing the nutritional care provided at the hospital in 2019 with national and global scenarios. Additionally, data on nutritional care in our hospital from 2017 to 2020 was compared. Quantitative variable groups were compared by the Student’s t-test. Relationships were analyzed using the Pearson’s chi-square test or the Fisher’s exact test for categorical data. The significance level was set at 10. Results Weighing on admission is a point of improvement for all groups. In our hospital it led to the creation of an institutional indicator for its monitoring. From 2017 to 2020, nutritional screening and assessment used the body mass index (BMI) and a non-validated tool until 2018. After 2019, we adopted nutritional risk screening (NRS2002) and a tool based on the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) to improve nutritional care. We found a trend towards improvement in satisfaction with the diet provided, which was associated with a significant increase in meal consumption and which is due to the monthly monitoring of meal satisfaction that generate action plans. We notice an increase in dietary restrictions reported by patients associated with adhering to a healthier diet. Thus, the composition of the meals changed over the years, with a decreased use of processed products. Conclusion The analysis of NutritionDay data is an effective strategy for better understanding nutritional risk factors, enabling comparisons with other services and facilitating the implementation of enhanced nutritional care protocols.