Undernutrition risk screening and length of stay of hospitalized elderly.

The purpose was to compare, in elderly hospitalized patients, the performance of widely used nutritional screening and assessment tools and anthropometric parameters with the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS-2002); and to evaluate their independent association with length of hospital stay. Nutritional-status screening and assessment was carried out using NRS-2002, Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST), and anthropometry. Patients classified by NRS-2002 as undernourished had an independent higher risk of longer length-of-stay (> 8 days): Odds ratio = 2.25 (95% Confidence Interval = 1.03 to 4.88). Nutritional "risk" by NRS-2002 is an independent risk factor for a long length of stay in elderly hospitalized patients, an important outcome predictor in this population.