Nutrition
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Structural and process indicators of nutritional care: a comparison between Austrian hospitals and nursing homes.
The aim of this study was to describe and compare structural and process indicators of nutritional care in Austrian hospitals and nursing homes. ⋯ The study demonstrated that nursing homes fulfilled more structural indicators and performed nutritional screening at admission more often than hospitals. Nevertheless, the prevalence of malnutrition was high in the two settings and a substantial number of malnourished patients/residents received no nutritional intervention at all. These results show the necessity for improvements in the nutritional care in Austria, for instance, through the routine use of nutritional screening tools followed by tailored nutritional interventions in patients/residents in need.