Exploring factors influencing dietary intake during hospitalization: Results from analyzing nutritionDay's database (2006-2013)

Background & aims: Hospital food consumption can affect patients' outcome leading to prolonged hospital stay or even increased mortality. In the present study, the nutritionDay database was analyzed (period 2006-2013) to explore the reasons for reduced food intake and associated factors during hospitalization as reported by the patients per se.

Methods: Data from 113,930 adult patients (male 49.9%; mean age 64.0 ± 18.1 y, mean BMI 25.7 ± 6.0 kg/m²) (from 4519 units, 1358 hospitals, 54 countries) were included. Dietary intake and reasons for reduced food intake were reported and analyzed.

Results: Only 41.6% of patients reported to have consumed all their served meal, whereas 9.3% ate nothing although allowed to eat. Variables like presence of caner, having nausea/vomiting, feeling tired, not feeling hungry and not liking food's taste increased the likelihood of consuming "¼ of the meal" but not "nothing". Variables like having gastrointestinal disorder, being bedrest, receiving nutritional support and not liking food's smell increased the likelihood of both decreased (¼ compared to ½) and null (nothing compared to ¼) food consumption (all p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Food consumption during hospitalization is associated with variables related to both patients' condition (e.g. clinical, physical) and factors related to the quality of hospital food.