Razširjenost podhranjenosti in tveganja za podhranjenost med otroki s kroničnimi boleznimi v programu (re)habilitacije
Prevalence of undernutrition and nutritional risk among children with chronic diseases in (re) habilitation program

slovenian

2024

volume 23, issue 1

nutrition assessment   nutritional status   nutritional strategy

Univerzitetni rehabilitacijski inštitut RS – Soča
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

Background: Malnutrition in children, especially those who need a hospital rehabilitation program, is poorly recognised, also because the standards for recognising malnutrition have not yet been clearly defined. We wanted to check the prevalence of nutritional risk in children who are included in a hospital rehabilitation program, according to the selected screening tool and according to indicators of malnutrition. We also wanted to assess the diagnostic characteristics of the selected screening tool. Methods: We included 97 children with various medical conditions who were referred to the rehabilitation program at the University Rehabilitation Institute in Ljubljana. The Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Pediatrics (STAMP) was used to screen for nutritional risk and clinical indicators for malnutrition to assess malnutrition. The usefulness of the screening tool as a diagnostic tool for determining malnutrition was evaluated by estimating the positive predictive value, negative predictive value, sensitivity and specificity. Results: According to STAMP assessment, risk for malnutrition was present in 89 % of the children, while according to clinical indicators for malnutrition, it was present in 51 % of the children. Assuming that STAMP had successfully diagnosed mild, moderate or severe malnutrition, with an estimated medium or high nutritional risk, the test has a high sensitivity (98 %) and a low specificity (21 %). The positive predictive value was 56 %, and the negative predictive value of the screening was 91 %. Conclusions: Nutritional risk and malnutrition among children in the rehabilitation setting were very common. The STAMP tool has a high sensitivity in detecting nutritional vulnerability, but the specificity was low. Its positive predictive value is also relatively low. These characteristics will need to be tested in a larger sample of children in the rehabilitation program and the screening tool may also need to be adapted.

11.12.2025