Nutritional risk and associated factors of adult in-patients at a teaching hospital in the Copperbelt province in Zambia; a hospital-based cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Nutritional risk and undernutrition are common problems among medical and surgical patients. In hospital, malnutrition is frequently under-diagnosed and untreated thereby contributing to morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of nutritional risk among adult inpatients at a teaching hospital in Zambia. In addition, the study sought to establish factors associated with nutritional risk. METHODS: A hospital-based cross-sectional study comprising of 186 consecutive in-patients aged 18–64 years admitted in medical and surgical wards was conducted at a teaching hospital. Out of one hundred and ninety eight (198) patients eligible to participate, complete data were collected from 186, representing a response rate of 93.9%. The Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool was used to collect data over a period of six months. Evaluated patients were dichotomized into no risk and nutritional risk. Binary logistic regression was performed to identify variables associated with nutritional risk. RESULTS: The mean age of adult in-patients was 40.72 ± 14.4 years. Majority of the patients were male (61.8%), while 38.2% were female. Results indicate that 59.7% of hospitalized patients were at nutritional risk. Vomiting, weakness, appetite decrease, dysphagia and weight loss were significantly associated (p = 0.019, p = 0.008, p < 0.001, p = 0.007, and p < 0.001 respectively) with nutritional risk. However, weight loss and appetite decrease were the most significant factors associated with nutritional risk (OR = 50.16, 95% CI = 5.75–36.70, p < 0.001 and OR = 28.06, 95% CI =1.49–8.12, p = < 0.001 respectively). CONCLUSION: Findings of our study suggest that close to 60% of adult inpatients at the teaching hospital were at nutritional risk. Nutritional risk is an issue of major concern at the teaching hospital and is associated with a number of variables. Identification of nutritional risk using Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool among adult inpatients is feasible in resource-poor settings like ours. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40795-018-0249-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.