Nutritional risk in hospitalised children: An assessment of two instruments

SummaryBackground & aimsA child’s nutritional status may deteriorate over the course of a hospital admission. No universally accepted paediatric nutritional screening tool exists. This study aimed to evaluate validity and ease of use of two new instruments, STAMP and STRONGKIDS, for the assessment of nutritional risk of paediatric inpatients.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study two trained investigators applied STAMP and STRONGKIDS to eligible inpatients. Demographic data, clinical information and anthropometric measurements were recorded. Correlation of assessed risk and two factors predictive of nutritional risk, anthropometric nutritional status and presence of nutritional intervention, were used to evaluate validity of the instruments.ResultsThe 43 children assessed by STAMP and STRONGKIDS, were assessed as: STAMP: 44% high risk, 28% medium risk and 28% low risk and STRONGKIDS: 27% high risk, 49% medium risk and 24% low risk. STAMP scores correlated to anthropometric measures of chronic undernutrition (height-for-age) but not measures of acute undernutrition (BMI). STRONGKIDS correlated to all anthropometric measures. For STAMP and STRONGKIDS, 57% and 83% of high risk children respectively, received nutritional intervention.ConclusionsIn terms of validity, STAMP correlates less closely to anthropometric assessment of nutritional status and identifies considerably more children receiving no nutritional intervention as high risk than STRONGKIDS. Our results suggest that STRONGKIDS may be a more useful paediatric nutritional screening tool but further comparative studies are required.