Abstract
There are not many day care facilities that regularly measure the weight of users, and it is often impossible to calculate the weight loss, which is one of the most important nutritional parameters. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of weight loss as a nutritional screening tool parameter on nutrition risk assessment. We compared differences in risk of malnutrition between those with and those without the weight loss among 92 day care facilities users. Approximately 40% of the users were categorized as having “medium” or “high” risk of malnutrition. When excluding the weight loss, 25.6% of users who were judged to be “low” were classified as “medium/high” risk of malnutrition, when including the weight loss. If the user’s weight loss cannot be calculated at the time of nutrition screening, the risk classification of malnutrition may be underestimated, and malnourished users may be included in the users classified as “low” risk of malnutrition.
