Effectiveness of a multidisciplinary team for nutrition support in a trauma intensive care unit

BACKGROUND: We evaluated clinical and nutritional outcomes according to multidisciplinary team involvement in nutrition support in a regional trauma intensive care unit (TICU). METHODS: We retrospectively compared the outcomes for 339 patients admitted to the TICU for >5 days depending on nutrition support team (NST) involvement (n=176) and non-NST involvement (n=163). RESULTS: The mean age and injury severity score (ISS) were 57.3±16.7 years and 18.6±9.7, respectively. Fifty-three patients (15.6%) had shock on admission and 182 (53.7%) underwent surgery during TICU admission. Some patients were admitted to neurosurgery (46%), general surgery (35.4%), and other (18.6%) departments. There were significant differences in the ISS, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score, shock on TICU admission, and initial laboratory results. After propensity score matching, the total delivered/required caloric ratio and total delivered/required protein ratio were significantly higher in the NST group than in the non-NST group (calorie: 80.4% vs. 66.7%, P=0.007; protein: 93.1% vs. 68.3%, P<0.001). The NST group had an adequate protein supply more frequently than the non-NST group (protein: 48.0% vs. 25.8%, P=0.002). There was no significant difference in survival, even after adjustment for risk factors using Cox proportional hazard analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our study suggest that multidisciplinary team involvement in nutrition support in TICU patients may improve nutritional, but not clinical, outcomes.