PD158 - EFFECT OF ALLOCATED DIETITIANS ON NUTRITIONAL ADEQUACY IN HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS: A REAL-WORLD OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

PD158

EFFECT OF ALLOCATED DIETITIANS ON NUTRITIONAL ADEQUACY IN HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS: A REAL-WORLD OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

J. H. Hundebøll^1,*, I. Wessel¹, F. Magkos², A. Rytter¹

¹Clinical Nutrition Center, Department of Transplantation and Digestive Diseases, Rigshospitalet, ²Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Rationale: Organizational factors may influence nutritional intake in hospitalized patients, but the impact of structured dietitian involvement in routine care remains unclear. At our institution, allocated dietitians are present in hematology and oncology wards, where they have primary responsibility for nutritional care, including systematic screening of all patients and structured follow-up of those at nutritional risk. We evaluated whether this model improves nutritional adequacy.

Methods: In a hospital-based observational study at a publicly funded tertiary referral center, data were collected from seven medical and surgical wards, three with allocated dietitians and four without. Full-day dietary intake was recorded using weighed food records at component level, with direct observation by trained study personnel during daytime hours (07:00–19:00) and structured registration overnight by nursing staff. A total of 289 full-day observations from 135 patients were included. Nutritional adequacy was defined as ≥75% of estimated energy and protein requirements. Differences between wards with and without dietitians were analyzed using mixed-effects logistic regression accounting for repeated measures within patients.

Results: Wards with allocated dietitians had higher odds of patients meeting ≥75% of protein requirements (OR 3.34, p=0.036). Odds of meeting ≥75% of energy requirements were also higher (OR 2.25, p=0.121), although this did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusion: Wards with allocated dietitians were associated with improved nutritional adequacy, particularly for protein intake. These findings support the use of allocated dietitians as an effective and clinically relevant strategy to improve nutritional care, particularly in settings with a high burden of nutritional risk.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared