Validation of a Food Intake Monitoring Method and an Intervention Study Based on Local and Experience Rich Food to Solve Nutritional Problems in Hospital

Many studies have revealed that although the hospital menu could meet patients’ nutritional requirements, more than 40% of hospital food was wasted, resulting in energy and protein intake of patients being less than 80% of that recommended. Inadequate nutrient intakes leads to a decline in nutritional status, even malnutrition, among hospitalized patients. The widespread problem of malnutrition in patients has been relatively stagnant at 20-60% over the last 30 years. The decline in hospitalized patients’ nutritional status was reported to be associated with longer length of stay, poorer clinical outcome, lower quality of life, and higher hospital costs.
Although many countries have been implementing the recommendations of the responsibilities of the foodservice personnel (i.e. to produce and deliver hospital food and to secure the nutritional value and palatability of the food), there is still much room for improvement in practice and limited research in this area. Further studies are needed focused on how to improve communication between the wards and the kitchen to ensure fulfillment of patients’ nutrient requirements. This will be accomplished by focus groups and questionnaires of healthcare staff and patients.
There also lacks validated methods for monitoring food intake of patients during their hospital stay in a simple and cost-efficient manner. So far, no validation studies have been conducted on methods for monitoring food intake in the hospital setting. Therefore, it is necessary to optimize and validate methods used to monitor dietary intake during patients’ hospital stay. Dietary protein and energy intake will be recorded using an automated Information Communication Technology (ICT) method during patients’ hospital stay and validated against weighed food record by the researcher as gold standard. These results will also be compared to the current practice of dietary recording used in the hospital.
In addition to optimizing communication and methods for monitoring food intake, there are also current efforts to promote local foods in terms of environmentally sustainable food systems and self-reliant food economies. Therefore, it is important to test the effect of an intervention providing better hospital food in terms of local food and experience rich products to improve patients’ nutritional intake. Nutritional intake of hospitalized patients before and after the intervention will be compared and the extent to which protein and energy requirements of hospitalized patients are met will be assessed.
The expected outcomes of this PhD project focuses on developing and validating innovative methods to monitor dietary intake during hospital stay of patients, so that it can also improve patients’ motivation to eat and support nutrition therapy by dietitians. Also we expect to provide better hospital food in term of local and experience rich foods to improve patients’ nutritional intake.