CONSENSUS OF VIETNAM PEDIATRIC ASSOCIATION: GUIDELINES FOR NUTRITIONAL SCREENING, ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION FOR PEDIATRIC PATIENTS

Tóm tắt

Nutritional status plays an important role in diagnosing and treating nutritional risks or malnutrition and supporting other treatments. Therefore, screening and correct assessment of nutritional status is necessary for early detection and timely intervention for children in the hospital. According to regulations, for inpatients, it is mandatory to classify and determine nutritional risks within 36 hours of admission and prescribe nutritional regimen. For outpatients, all patients need to be screened for nutritional risk factors. Previously, a very large proportion of children were not screened and assessed for nutritional status upon admission, leading to failure to receive timely nutritional interventions. Currently, hospitals have implemented nutritional screening and assessment for children using forms developed by  he hospital itself or referenced from other organizations. However, in general, the new forms only focus on inpatients and there is no form for outpatients. Moreover, stunting malnutrition has not received due attention even though the rate of stunted children is still high.

Therefore, there is a need for a unified set of tools in pediatrics to screen, assess and intervene in nutrition for children. The Vietnam Pediatric Association organized an expert workshop on the topic “Nutrition to improve height of Vietnamese children - Timely diagnosis and  ntervention of malnutrition” with the participation of Professors, Doctors, and Physicians who are leading experts in nutrition and pediatrics.

Through this workshop, the experts compiled the document “Consensus: GUIDELINES FOR NUTRITIONAL SCREENING, ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION FOR PEDIATRIC PATIENTS”. The content of the guideline aims to provide a sample form for risk screening, nutritional status assessment and intervention flowchart For pediatric Inpatients and outpatients in accordance with the policy of the Circular 18/2020/TT-BYT regulating nutrition activities in hospitals and the Hospital Quality Criteria to help medical staff in the pediatric system quickly detect nutritional problems and provide appropriate interventions for pediatric patients as well as accurately report results to the professional system.