Are Nutritional Screening Scores Associated with the Serum Albumin Levels and the Presence of Bedsores in Bedridden and Chairbound Home Care Patients?

Emre Adıgüzel¹ and Nilüfer Acar-Tek^2,

¹Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University, Karaman, Turkey

²Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey

Cite this paper

Emre Adıgüzel and Nilüfer Acar-Tek. Are Nutritional Screening Scores Associated with the Serum Albumin Levels and the Presence of Bedsores in Bedridden and Chairbound Home Care Patients?. American Journal of Public Health Research. 2021; 9(3):100-105. doi: 10.12691/AJPHR-9-3-3

Abstract

Based on the fact that immobile bedridden patients have a high risk of developing bedsores and infection, we evaluated whether the presence of bedsores and low serum albumin levels significantly alter the scores of long and short forms of Mini Nutritional Assessment and body mass index. From January to July 2016, 143 bedridden/chairbound home care patients were visited with the Karaman State Hospital home healthcare team. The Mini Nutritional Assessment and Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form were used for nutritional evaluation. The retrospective serum albumin levels that had been analysed in the last 30 days, were recorded from the patients’ files. Also, the skin integrity was evaluated by the home care physician to detect the presence of bedsores. The mean Mini Nutritional Assessment and Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form scores of the patients were 13.2±7.0 and 6.4±3.8, respectively. The mean serum albumin level was 3.2±0.6 g/dL, and 33 patients had bedsores. The Mini Nutritional Assessment and Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form scores, and body mass index values in patients with normal serum albumin levels were significantly higher than those in patients with low serum albumin levels. Moreover, these nutritional parameters in patients with bedsores were significantly lower than those in patients without bedsores. Lastly, the serum albumin levels were found to be significantly positively correlated with all these nutritional parameters. (r=0.477 for Mini Nutritional Assessment; r=0.456 for Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form; r=0.451 for body mass index). Low Mini Nutritional Assessment and Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form scores were significantly related to the presence of bedsores, providing strong evidence that malnutrition may be a major risk factor for bedsore formation. An effective, comprehensive, and holistic treatment protocol and care plan, including nutritional intervention, is important and necessary for immobile home care patients.

Keywords

nutritional assessment, bedridden patients, bedsore, serum albumin, body mass index

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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