The Correlation of Malnutrition with Mortality and Morbidity According to Global Initiative on Malnutrition Criteria in the Palliative Care Unit

AIM: The objective of this study was to retrospectively assess the correlation of malnutrition with mortality and morbidity according to Global Initiative on Malnutrition criteria in patients with the diagnosis of lung cancer hospitalized in the palliative care unit. METHOD: The sample of the study consisted of the data of 705 patients with lung cancer, who were hospitalized in the palliative care unit in a training and research hospital between January 2018 and January 2020. All the patients' demographic characteristics, disease-related data, laboratory values, Global Initiative on Malnutrition scores, mortality in the last 3 months, and recurrent hospitalizations in the last 3 months were recorded from the patient records and automation system. RESULTS: According to the Global Initiative on Malnutrition criteria, 64 (9.2%) of the patients had malnutrition. There was a negative correlation between the ages and the admission albumin levels of patients with malnutrition who passed away in the last 3 months. CONCLUSION: No correlation was found between malnutrition and duration of mortality according to Global Initiative on Malnutrition criteria. Moreover, a difference was found between C-reactive protein and albumin levels of the patients according to the degree of malnutrition. It is recommended that nurses should start nutritional assessments of patients immediately when the patient is admitted to hospital.