Setting the Context
Addressing the needs of inpatients is a rather intricate task. On the one hand, the identified setting offers opportunities for establishing tighter control over the way in which crucial services are delivered, and the instructions are followed. On the other hand, with a large number of inpatients, making sure that individual needs of each are met accordingly is very difficult, especially given the shortage of nurses and the schedule issues in the modern healthcare environment (Wakabayashi & Sashika, 2014). Therefore, numerous issues from comorbid complications to nosocomial infections to other possible concerns may need to be addressed. Malnutrition in hospitalized patients is one such problem, and it has to be detected at the earliest stages of development so that it could be eliminated successfully. Otherwise, the chances for the patient’s recovery are likely to drop significantly.
Problem Description
Characteristics
Malnutrition is becoming an increasingly large concern in hospitals, especially in the acute care environment (Wakabayashi & Sashika, 2014). Despite often being associated with undernourishment, malnutrition may also be caused by an overly large intake of food (Zhai, Dong, Bai, Wei, & Jia, 2017). Furthermore, malnutrition can occur if the patient consumes food that does not provide the right balance of nutrients, i.e., the patient may lack only some components of a healthy diet (Wakabayashi & Sashika, 2014). In any of the cases mentioned above, though, the regular pattern of food consumption is disrupted, which triggers malnutrition. Apart from the identified definition of the disorder, malnutrition can also occur in case patients cannot process food due to health issues (e.g., diarrhea) (Haque et al., 2014).
Impact
Malnutrition has a detrimental effect on patients’ immune systems, thus, reducing their ability to resist diseases. Studies show that there is a direct correlation between the quality of nutrition and the patients’ ability to resist infections (Bindels & Delzenne, 2013). Furthermore, malnutrition may serve as the factor contributing to the aggravation of inflammations (Bindels & Delzenne, 2013).
In addition, the threat of muscle wasting increases once the patients are undernourished. The phenomenon of muscle wasting occurs as a result of a change in the microbiota of the patient’s gut. The identified phenomenon is termed dysbiosis and is defined as “alterations in the composition and/or activity of the gut microbiota in association with pathological features” (Bindels & Delzenne, 2013, p. 2187).
Therefore, an increase in the length of hospital stays and the mortality rates should be viewed as the key impact of malnutrition. The prolonged hospital stays, in their turn, are bound to cause a drop in the speed of the patients’ recovery rate. Furthermore, the patients are likely to be exposed to the threat of nosocomial infections to a greater degree when staying longer in the hospital setting.
Significance
Even though there is a range of screening options for detecting the threat of malnutrition, including the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) (a basic three-question test), a more recent Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS-2002), the Graz Malnutrition Screening (GMS), etc. (Roller, Eglseer, Eisenberger, & Wirnsberger, 2016), malnutrition is very difficult to spot. Therefore, the subject matter remains a major problem due to the lack of chances to determine it at the earliest stages of its development.
Thus, exploring the issue of malnutrition among hospitalized patients is likely to have a rather high significance. Particularly, options for detecting the problem at the earliest stages of its development and introducing the tools for its successful management can be identified. As a result, the negative consequences of malnutrition among inpatients can be prevented and managed successfully. Particularly, the recovery process and the length of stay in the hospital will be reduced significantly.
References
Bindels, L. B., & Delzenne, N. M. (2013). Muscle wasting: The gut microbiota as a new therapeutic target? The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology 45(10), 2186-2190. Web.
Haque, R., Snider, C., Liu, Y., Ma, J. Z., Liu, L., Nayak, U.,… Petri, W. A. (2014). Oral polio vaccine response in breast fed infants with malnutrition and diarrhea. Vaccine, 32(4), 478-482. Web.
Roller, R. E., Eglseer, D., Eisenberger, A., & Wirnsberger, G. H. (2016). The Graz Malnutrition Screening (GMS): A new hospital screening tool for malnutrition. British Journal of Nutrition, 115(4), 650-657. Web.
Wakabayashi, H., & Sashika, H. (2014). Malnutrition is associated with poor rehabilitation outcome in elderly inpatients with hospital-associated deconditioning: A prospective cohort study. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 46(3), 277-282. Web.
Zhai, L., Dong, Y., Bai, Y., Wei, W., & Jia, L. (2017). Trends in obesity, overweight, and malnutrition among children and adolescents in Shenyang, China in 2010 and 2014: A multiple cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 17(1), 151-157. Web.