Comparative Survey on Nutrition Risk and Nutrition Support Among Hospitalized General Surgery Patients Over a 7‐Year Period

BACKGROUND: In China, the trend of the prevalence of nutrition risk and malnutrition among the patients in hospitals has changed dramatically in the past few years. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of nutrition risk, undernutrition, and the application of nutrition support among hospitalized general surgery patients over a 7‐year period from 2010 to 2017. METHODS: A total of 810 consecutive inpatients who met the inclusion criteria upon admission and provided informed consent were recruited from March to December 2017. Nutrition risk was screened using the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 tool. All the data collected in 2017 were compared with the data collected in 2010. RESULTS: The prevalence of undernutrition among the surgical patients in 2017 (12.8%) was lower than that in 2011 (15.5%) (P < .05), whereas the prevalence of nutrition risk in 2017 (42.6%) was higher than that in 2011 (30.4%) (P < .01). The application of nutrition support, including parenteral nutrition and enteral nutrition, among the patients in 2017 was higher than that in 2010 (P < .05). In 2017, 70.7% of the patients who were at nutrition risk received nutrition support, whereas only 48.9% of patients at nutrition risk did in 2010 (P < .05). Moreover, 26.9% of patients without nutrition risk received nutrition support in 2017 compared with 18.0% of patients in 2010. CONCLUSIONS: The nutrition statuses among surgical inpatients changed from 2010 to 2017. The prevalence of undernutrition was reduced, whereas the prevalence of nutrition risk increased. The application of nutrition support increased significantly, whereas inappropriate application of nutrition support still existed in our hospital. More attention should be paid to the nutrition‐related issues of general surgery inpatients in the future.