Nutritional risk screening—a cross-sectional study in a tertiary pediatric hospital

BACKGROUND: All hospitalized patients should be screened for malnutrition risk. No universal method exists for pediatric patients. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional study comparing three published malnutrition risk screening tools (PYMS, STAMP, and STRONG(kids)), applying them to each inpatient aged 1 month to 17 years over a period of five consecutive weekdays in Helsinki University Hospital, Finland. RESULTS: Of the eligible patients, 67% (n = 69) participated. We found that 6.2% of the children were acutely malnourished and accurately categorized by the three tools. STRONG(kids) showed the highest specificity (100%) and positive predictive value (36%). Acute malnutrition seemed to be associated with longer hospital stay (p = 0.051). CONCLUSION: STRONG(kids) was the most accurate screening tool for detecting acute malnutrition and was therefore chosen as the screening method in our hospital. Routine screening for the risk of malnutrition in pediatric inpatients is important in detecting at-risk children who would otherwise be left without dietary intervention. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s41043-019-0166-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.