Development of the Tool for Monitoring Protein and Energy Intake of Adult Patients in Pattani Hospital

Abstract

Malnutrition in hospital is commonly found. It is caused by 2 main factors, i.e. inadequate dietary intake and having underlying chronic diseases which increase nutrient requirement. Thus, evaluation and monitoring daily energy intake is a means to prevent and control malnutrition in hospitalized patients. Presently, Pattani hospital does not have any simple dietary assessment tool which is appropriate for the hospital context. This study aimed to develop the simple tool for monitoring energy and protein intake; to compare the performance of the developed tool with the standard tool. Thirty patients aged 18-64 years in special room were included in the study. The 24 hour dietary intakes were recorded by weighing method for the foods served by hospital and estimated food record for the foods taken from outside hospital (reference method). In the evening of the same day, the patients were also asked to recall food intake in the past 24 hour according to developed food record form (studied method). INMUCAL-Nutrient v.2 program was used to analyze energy and protein in 24 hour dietary intake collected by the reference method while Food Exchange List was applied for analyzing energy and protein intake from the studied method. The results showed that the average energy and protein intakes derived by the studied tool were not significantly different from those derived by reference method. Correlation coefficient for energy and protein are 0.957 (p<0.05) and 0.830 (p<0.05), respectively. The agreement of the two methods in classifying groups by levels of energy and protein intake was moderate (kappa 0.644, p<0.05) and fair (kappa 0.333, p<0.05), respectively. In conclusion, the developed simple tool is appropriate for evaluation and monitoring energy and protein intake of patients in Pattani hospital.