Identifying critically ill patients who benefit the most from nutrition therapy: the development and initial validation of a novel risk assessment tool

Table 1 Patient characteristics

	All patients (n= 597) *	Patients evaluable for nutritional adequacy (n= 211)†
Age	63.9 (51.7 to 73.3)	65.0 (52.4 to 74.4)
Gender
Female	250 (41.8%)	91 (43.1%)
Male	348 (58.2%)	120 (56.9%)
Race
Asian or Pacific Islander	3 (0.5%)	1 (0.5%)
Black	51 (8.5%)	10 (4.7%)
Hispanic	1 (0.2%)	0 (0.0%)
Native American	4 (0.7%)	1 (0.5%)
White	539 (90.1%)	199 (94.3%)
Baseline Apache II score	21.0 (16.0 to 27.0]	23.0 (19.0 to 28.0)
Baseline SOFA score	7.0 (5.0 to 9.0]	7.0 (5.0 to 10.0)
# of days in hospital prior to ICU admission	0.4 (0.0 to 2.8]	0.5 (0.1 to 3.4)
BMI	26.5 (23.2 to 31.3]	26.8 (22.9 to 32.0)
Diabetes	136 (22.7%)	52 (24.6%)
Number of co-morbidities	3.0 (1.0 to 4.0]	3.0 (1.0 to 4.0)
Admission category
Medical	375 (62.7%)	164 (77.7%)
Surgical	222 (37.1%)	47 (22.3%)
Primary admission diagnosis
Cardiovascular/vascular	51 (8.5%)	20 (9.5%)
Respiratory	166 (27.8%)	89 (42.2%)
Gastrointestinal	99 (16.6%)	25 (11.8%)
Neurologic	35 (5.9%)	10 (4.7%)
Sepsis	40 (6.7%)	19 (9.0%)
Trauma	47 (7.9%)	17 (8.1%)
Metabolic	40 (6.7%)	11 (5.2%)
Post-operative conditions	75 (12.5%)	15 (7.1%)
Renal	26 (4.3%)	1 (0.5%)
Orthopedic	18 (3.0%)	4 (1.9%)

APACHE II, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation; BMI, body mass index; SOFA, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment.
Values are median (q1 to q3) or n (%).
* These patients were used for developing and evaluating the NUTRIC score.
† The association between nutritional adequacy and mortality (by NUTRIC score) was assessed in the 211 patients who started mechanical ventilation within 48 hours after ICU admission, stayed in the ICU for three days or longer and recorded caloric intake.

ISSN: 1364-8535