Assessment of malnutrition prevalence and its related factors in the referred patients to the medical centers in Iran and some countries in the world

Malnutrition is common in the patients admitted to the hospitals and medical centers. If the symptoms of malnutrition go unnoticed or be mistaken for those of the patient’s main disorder, disease prognosis is likely to be poor, hospital stay lengthened and the patients may be less able to respond to surgical and medical procedures, including medication. This article assesses the prevalence of malnutrition in some medical centers in Iran and the other countries. In this systematic review, article were gathered the from the databases like Medline, Iranmedex, SID, Magiran, Pubmed, Scopus by using Thesaurus-based keywords like malnutrition, hospital, prevalence, nutritional management between 1984 to 2012 years. According to reviewing the articles, about 20% to 50% of all medical and surgical patients admitted to medical centers are affected by malnutrition prevalence being significantly higher in patients with malignant compared to benign disease and after surgical treatment. Malnutrition correlated with primary undiagnosed malnutrition at admission, age, sex, presence of cancer or infection, longer hospital stay, insufficient food intake, impaired digestion or absorption, increased nutrient requirements and excess nutritional losses. High nutritional risk medical units were identified as geriatrics, critical care, nephrology, internal medicine, gastroenterology and cardiovascular surgery, respectively.