Reduced Food Intake Is Associated with Mortality in Hospitalized Patients (P12-026-19)

OBJECTIVES: Inadequate food intake is associated with mortality in hospitalized patients. Even with the emphasis on malnutrition-related dangers, investigating all hospitalized patients in Korea for food intake and factors affecting food intake is difficult but we need to food intake in hospitalized patients for efficient nutrition management. Therefore, A large-scale nutrition investigation was conducted to examine food intake in all hospitalized patients. We aimed to examine food intakes in hospitalized patients in Korea, to evaluate the relationship between inadequate food intake and mortality, and to ascertain mortality-related risk factors. METHODS: A one-day cross-sectional study on food intake and mortality was conducted on 1074 hospitalized adult patients on June 23, 2011. Food intake, assessed using questionnaires, was divided into four categories: 0%, 25%, 50%, and 100%. We collected disease-related factors and meal-related factors from electronic medical records. We also evaluated "length of hospital stay" and "probability of death in hospital" using a post-survey after 60 days. We identified risk factors for mortality using multivariate analysis. Gray's test was adopted for survival analysis of “probability of death in hospital” according to food intake. RESULTS: We included 1074 patients from 56 wards, including the intensive care unit. The following characteristics were observed: average age, 57 years; average body mass index, 22.8 kg/m2; and sex ratio, 55.2% male. On survey day, 35.4% patients ate a whole meal, 56.4% ate half of the meal, 20.2% ate quarter of the meal, and 8.2% ate nothing. Patients who consumed nothing had a 7.2-times higher mortality risk (HR) than patients who consumed a whole meal (P = 0.001). The mortality risk increased by 2.9 (P = 0.056) and 2.6 times (P = 0.102) in patients who consumed 50% and 25% of the meal, respectively. Risk factors contributing to mortality risk included heart/circulation (HR 18.026, P = 0.005), cancer (HR 17.990, P