Nutritional Screening Tool for Cardiac Patients
This week I read an interesting article discussing the utilization of nutritional screening tools for cardiac patients. As we know, diet can play a major role in the development and progression of all types of heart disease and assessing patient’s diet is becoming extremely common and important. This interesting article examined whether a simple five question screening tool could be as effective as the proven diet assessments done by dieticians that are in depth and often take 30 minutes. The quick screening tool asked questions regarding the intake of monounsaturated fats (such as canola oil, olive oil, avocados), whether the client eats seven fruits and vegetables daily, do they eat fish twice weekly, do they have two portions of soluble fiber weekly, and do they drink two or less alcoholic drinks per day. As a side note this research was done in Australia. In Australia only 5.5% eat the recommended daily fruits and vegetables and 20% consume more than the recommended portion of alcohol. I thought these were pretty scary stats.
The study encompassed 34 participants that did both the screening tool by a nurse and the diet assessment by a dietician. What the study found was that the quick screening tool was accurate in determining the amounts of fruits, the amount of alcohol, and amount of fish consumed. However, items such as monounsaturated fats and soluble fiber were not as accurate. This lack of accuracy may be that they are not simple items but need more explanation or thought about these items in their diet. Also the screening tool was not accurate for vegetables. When fruit and vegetables were put together in the question people would meet this goal but when asked separately and in detail by a dietician they found they were eating more fruits than vegetables, giving that question a false positive for vegetables in the screening tool. I think that these types of screening tools may be useful in the hospital setting as they would be quick to administer and may give and overall sense of a patient’s diet. However, I feel that most cardiac patients would benefit with the consultation of a dietician as eating in today’s world and reading food labels can be very difficult.
References
Neubeck, L., Lowres, N., Jackson, A., Freedman, B., Briffa, T., Bauman, A., & Julie, R. (2014). A simple screening tool for assessment of nutritional status in cardiac patients. British Journal Of Cardiac Nursing, 9(10), 508-512.
