Nutritional risk predicts readmission within 30 and 180 days after discharge among older adult patients across a broad spectrum of diagnoses.

Background And Aims: Hospital readmissions can have negative consequences for older adult patients, their relatives, the hospital, and society. Previous studies indicate that older adult patients who are at nutritional risk during hospital admission are at higher risk of readmission. There is a lack of studies investigating this relationship across different older adult patient groups while using recommended instruments and adjusting for relevant confounders. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether nutritional status according to the Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 during hospitalization predicted readmission among older adult patients within 30 and 180 days across a broad spectrum of wards and diagnoses when adjusting for age, sex, length-of-stay, diagnosis, and discharge destination.

Materials And Methods: The present study is a retrospective cohort study based on registry data and included 21,807 older adult patients (≥65 years) hospitalized during a 5-year period. In order to investigate the relationship between nutritional risk and readmission, hierarchical logistic regression analyses with readmission within 30 days (n = 8371) and 180 days (n = 7981) as the dependent variable were performed.

Results: Older adult patients at nutritional risk during the index admission were 1.44 times more likely to be readmitted within 30 days after discharge (P < 0.001), and 1.47 times more likely to be readmitted within 180 days after discharge (P < 0.001), compared to older adult patients who were not at nutritional risk during index admission when adjusting for age, sex, discharge destination, diagnosis group, and length-of-stay.

Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of focusing on nutritional status in older adults as a factor in the prevention of readmissions, including ensuring that practices, resources, and guidelines support appropriate screening procedures. Because nutritional risk predicts readmission both in a 30-days and 180-days perspective, the results point to the importance of ensuring follow-up on the screening result, both in the hospital context and after discharge.