Routine nutrition screening in hospital: a pilot study

Current information suggests that the present system used by hospital dietitians for formatting their caseloads is not effective. Dietitians review all inpatients who are consuming therapeutic diets and rely upon health care team members for referring patients who are consuming non therapeutic, but potentially suboptimal diets. However, there is no evidence to support the view that dietitians should focus their services primarily on patients consuming therapetic diets. Furthermore, health care teams may be uncertain which patient needs dietitian services. The aim of this study was to improve the dietetics referral system in Concord Hospital (CH), a metropolitan teaching hospital in Sydney. A nutrition screening tool called the Nutrition Screening Questionnaire (NSQ) was devised by the researcher and piloted by nursing staff working in urology (surgical) and general medical units for male patients (n=100) as part of their admission procedures. There are four sections in the NSQ.