Relación entre tiempo de la estancia hospitalaria y el estado nutricional de los pacientes del Servicio de Medicina Interna del Hospital Pablo Arturo Suárez durante el segundo semestre del año 2015.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between the time of hospital stay and the nutritional status of patients in the internal medicine service of the Pablo Arturo Suarez Hospital, during the second semester of 2015. 171 patients were included with hospital stay equal to or greater than 10 days,, the information was collected from the clinical records being a non-experimental cross-sectional study, the statistical test that was used was Chi square giving us as results that 23.39% of patients have severe malnutrition, 8.72% with moderate malnutrition and 15.78% with mild malnutrition, laboratory values related to nutrition altered with 11.69%, cases of obesity are also found in 11.69% and 1.1% of patients with morbid obesity, only 8.77% of the total patients had a normal weight. Demonstrating that there is a relationship between the length of hospital stay and the nutritional status of patients in the internal medicine service where it is evident that the level of malnutrition depends on the days of hospital stay. When the number of days is higher, the effect of malnutrition is greater, since the p value is 0.010 less than 0.05, so the research hypothesis is accepted at a confidence level of 95%. It is recommended the application of a Subjective - Objective - Analysis - Plan (SOAP) for the best nutritional assessment and a more frequent monitoring which must be reported in the clinical history in order to have a record of the evolution of the patient with respect to the nutritional part.