The data are included in the 2023 Annual Report of the National Program for the Promotion of Healthy Eating (PNPAS) of the DGS, released today, which monitors nutritional risk, i.e. the risk of morbidity and mortality due to nutritional status, in hospitals of the National Health Service (NHS).

Of the 181,019 hospitalised patients who underwent nutritional screening last year, 51,238 (28.3%) were at nutritional risk, the report states, adding that the average percentage of patients assessed was 31.2% in 2023, 29.2% in 2022 and 27.4% in 2021.

According to the data, about 48% of the patients at nutritional risk underwent nutritional intervention in the first 24 hours after the notification and 69.4% of the adult patients at nutritional risk had nutritional intervention.

Commenting on these data to the Lusa agency, the director of PNPAS, Maria João Gregório, stated that the percentage of patients identified as being at nutritional risk (28.3%) is consistent with what is described in the studies.

The nutritionist explained that malnutrition is often associated with the disease.

On the other hand, she stated, "a large percentage of the hospital population is elderly and malnutrition is also more prevalent in these population groups and, therefore, these numbers are more or less in accordance with what is described in the literature".

The data show that there has been a "tendency for an increase in the response capacity of hospital units to implement this nutritional screening" over the last few years, explained Maria João Gregório.

"However, we still need to significantly improve the response of the hospital units so that they can effectively make this systematic identification of nutritional risk in all patients who are hospitalised", defended the nutritionist.

According to Maria João Gregório, the objective is to extend the identification of nutritional risk to primary health care.

"This is the path that is currently being taken", she said, recalling that a dispatch was published last year to this effect.

The director of the programme recalled that this measure resulted from a dispatch of 2018, which began to be implemented the following year, with the objective of ensuring that this nutritional screening is carried out on all hospitalised patients in NHS hospitals.

"Then the objective is that the patients who are identified at risk are referred to the nutrition service so that they can then have an assessment of their nutritional status", she explained.

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