Epidemiology of Hospital Malnutrition With a Focus on Hospital Wards Where Malnutrition Is a Serious Problem

OBJECTIVES: The review aimed to collect data on the extent of malnutrition in patients from various hospital wards, with particular emphasis on cancer patients with various types of malignancies.

METHODS: Scoping review was held on Pubmed and publicly available sources of information, with particular focus on the most recent and the most reliable data from the systematic and nonsystematic literature reviews. Additional data, uncovered with the above-mentioned sources, were taken from statistical reports of dedicated associations.

RESULTS: Malnutrition is common in all medical facilities, especially in hospitals and long-term care institutions. It is estimated that up to 50-60% of hospitalized adult patients suffer from malnutrition. The problem is widespread even in high-income, well-developed societies. Undernutrition is notably frequent in patients with gastrointestinal, respiratory, and neurological diseases, but particularly among people with malignancies, who have rates of malnutrition twice as high as in patients without cancer. In this group of patients, there are also fractions more or less prone to cachexia - it depends mainly on the tumour location.

CONCLUSIONS: Malnutrition is a serious problem among hospitalized people, especially those with chronic or devastating diseases.