The Nutritionist's Educational Intervention on the Protein Intake in Hospitalized Elderly People

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Sarcopenia; Protein Malnutrition; Old Age; Cachexia; Dietary Habits; Patient Participation
• Interventions: Other: educational intervention

• Registration Number: NCT05502445
• Lead Sponsor: Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein

Brief Summary

The food intake is often compromised in the elderly, and during hospitalization, dietary restrictions may be imposed, making them more susceptible to the risk of malnutrition and sarcopenia. It is essential to make an early identification of the elderly with low intake and involve them in their self-care. The aims will be assess the influence of the nutritionist's educational action to increase protein intake in elderly patients, to analyze the knowledge on its importance in the prevention of sarcopenia and to identify the prevalence of nutritional risk. This is a field, prospective, correlational, comparative and randomized study. The elderly patients will be randomized into a Control Group and Intervention Group.

Detailed Description

The Control Group will follow the flow of nutritional assessment and monitoring while the Intervention Group will receive daily visits to monitor food intake, leaflet and educational video on the importance of protein and its source foods. In both groups, a questionnaire on knowledge of protein sources and its importance will be applied, and we will calculated the 24-hour recall of a regular day and for three days of hospitalization. Patients will be assessment by Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form and SARC-F and will be the measurements of calf circumference and hand grip strength.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2021-09-01
• Primary Completion: 2022-03-16
• Study Completion: 2022-03-16
• Status Verified: 2022-08
• Study First Submitted: 2022-08-09
• Study First Submitted QC: 2022-08-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-08-12
• Study First Posted: 2022-08-16
• Last Update Posted: 2022-08-16

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 58

Inclusion Criteria

• elderly patients aged 60 years or older,
• with a prescription of oral feeding, exclusively,
• minimum period of three days.

Exclusion Criteria

• palliative care,
• treatment for chronic renal failure,
• patients with neurological deficit and dysphagia,
• readmissions during the study,
• receiving enteral and/or parenteral nutritional therapy,
• patients in isolation.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Intervention Group	educational intervention	In this group, the steps below are added: * On the first day, the delivery of the leaflet on the importance of nutrition in the hospital environment will be added in addition to verbal guidance. * On the second day, an educational institutional video with duration of two minutes, will be shown with the title "Food Intake and Oral Supplement in Nutritional Rehabilitation" via tablet or mobile phone. * When the 24-hour recall will be collected, an assessment of food intake will be performed, mainly of foods that are sources of protein and, when they were less than 75%, strategies must be designed to increase the acceptance or indication of oral nutritional supplements (ONS).

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Total energy and protein needs and intakes from dietary and oral nutritional supplements during hospitalization, according to the study group	three days	Energy and protein intakes per kg of actual body weight and per day

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Assessment and screening of sarcopenia risk by SARC-F questionnaire	one day (first day of assessment)	Patients who present a result greater than or equal to 4 of this questionnaire are classified as risk of sarcopenia
Assessment of low muscle mass by measuring the calf circumference	one day (first day of assessment)	the cutoff points of 33cm for females and 34cm for males were used
Assessment of low muscle strength	one day (first day of assessment)	The values that discriminate the altered exam are different for each age and sex. The result will be expressed as normal or low muscle strength
Dietary prescription of hospitalized elderly	three days	to evaluate the number of hospitalized elderly who remained with salt and sugar restriction in the diet, according to medical prescription
Assessment and screening of nutritional risk	one day (first day of assessment)	Assessment by Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form, it has the three classifications: 0-7 points: malnourished; 8 -11 points: at risk of malnutrition; or 12-14 points: well-nourished
Questionnaire on previous knowledge of protein source foods and sarcopenia	one day	The questionnaire has 9 questions related to knowledge of protein source foods and their importance on health and impact when consumption is not adequate. The last question is about physical activity, to assess how many patients follow the World Health Organization's recommendation. Was evaluated how many patients answered the questions correctly and how many practiced physical activity

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein; 🇧🇷 São Paulo, SP, Brazil