Reliability of nurse assessment of malnutrition risk in hospital patients

People admitted to hospital are at significant risk of malnutrition and it is vital that nurses are able to screen them for risk and make appropriate referrals to dietitians (Cornish et al. 2004). Screening tools, therefore, need to be reliable, valid and sufficiently sensitive and specific to be useful. There have been some studies on the reliability and validity of nutritional screening tools (Burden et al. 2001) but such studies are scarce. The NAT used in the present study was locally derived and already widely used in one UK NHS Trust. We aimed to ensure that the NAT identified those at risk of becoming malnourished and those who already were