Most Proposed Topic :
Healthcare Advances, Research and Innovations (new projects / technology)
Proposed Topic (Second preferred): :
Clinical Safety and Quality Service I (Projects aiming to improve efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery to meet international standards)
Authors: (including presenting author): :
Lam W(1), Lee SPP(2)
Affiliation: :
(1)Dietetic Department, Haven of Hope Hospital (2)Dietetic Department, United Christian Hospital
Introduction: :
Palliative care aims at promoting quality of life, symptom management and alleviating suffering. Nutrition plays an important role in the palliative care by promoting comfort, relieving symptoms and improving the quality of life of advanced cancer patients. Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment Short Form (PG-SGA Short Form) is a valid nutrition assessment tool to identify the prevalence of symptoms of patients on palliative care.
Objectives: :
This study examined the change of nutrition related markers after nutritional intervention under hospice care in Haven of Hope Hospital by using PG-SGA Short Form.
Methodology: :
Patient admitted into hospice units of Haven of Hope Hospital were recruited between April 2023 and December 2023. PG-SGA Short Form was conducted on patients during initial nutrition assessment and after nutritional intervention in hospice units. Paired-t test was used to demonstrate significance of variation among nutrition-specific parameters between pre-and post- nutritional intervention.
Result & Outcome: :
A total of 86 patients were recruited between April 2023 and December 2023. 64 patients (74.4% of total patients) have completed the PG-SGA Short Form before and after nutritional intervention. There were 33 males and 31 females, the mean age was 71.9 +/- 11.6 years old and the range of age was 44-93 years old. During initial nutrition assessment, 81% of patients had experienced weight loss during past 2 weeks and 75% of them also reported their food intake was less than usual during the past month. The most common nutrition related symptoms were fatigue (57.8%), constipation (42.2%), no appetite (37.5%), nausea (23.4%), vomiting (21.9%) and feeling full quickly (12.5%). Additionally, 25% of patients reported pain and most common area of pain was abdominal region. Regarding to function and activity, only 14.1% of patients found it was normal with no limitation. Significant portion of patients (67.2%) were only able to do little activity and spent most of the day in bed or chair. The PG-SGA Short Form score before and after nutritional intervention improved from 9.6 to 7 and it is statistically significant (p=0.0002). Nutrition related symptoms including fatigue (43.8%), constipation (28.1%), no appetite (17.2%), nausea (18.8%), vomiting (15.6%) and feeling full (4.7%) also demonstrated improvement. Improving of appetite is promising and it is significantly different (p=0.0097). Similar proportion of patients and 23.4% of them still complained feeling of pain. Also, activity level gradually deteriorated and there was increasing percentage from 67.2% to 71.9% of patients reported spending most of the day in bed or chair. This study demonstrated that PG-SGA Short Form could be a practical tool to assess nutrition status of patients under hospice care. The result is helpful to develop more applicable strategies of nutrition management especially on nutrition related symptoms experienced by patients receiving palliative care.
