THE EFFECT OF MALNUTRITION AT ADMISSION ON LENGTH OF HOSPITAL STAY AMONG ADULT PATIENTS IN ADAMA HOSPITAL MEDICAL COLLEGE, ADAMA, CENTRAL ETHIOPIA: PROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY

Abstract

Background: Malnutrition is a widespread problem both at community and hospital settings. In hospital setting, it is prevalent with the range of 20-50% of patients being found malnourished at admission. Poor nutritional status is highly associated with range of functional, clinical, and economic outcomes. Objective: The general objective is to determine the effect of malnutrition at admission on length of hospital stay in adult patients in Adama Hospital Medical College starting from June 15 to July 30, 2024.. Methods and Materials: An institution based prospective cohort study was conducted among 401 adult hospitalized patients (217 exposed and 184 unexposed) at Adama Hospital and Medical College on eligible subjects who were admitted to the selected wards during the study period. The nutritional status of the subject was recorded within 24 hr. of admission using the subjective global assessment tool. Length of stay was recorded in days for every subject from the day of admission to discharge. Data was cleaned, checked, coded and entered using Epi data version 3.1 and all statistical tests were done using STATA version 17.0. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the characteristics of study participants. Cox proportional-hazard model was fitted to verify the effect of malnutrition on length of stay; both crude and adjusted hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals were estimated to show the strength and direction of associations. Statistical significance was considered at p value less than 0.05