Interest of a Visual Scale for Evaluating Food Portions as a Screening Tool for Nutritional Risk in Pediatrics (EFImôme)

Toulouse University Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Undernutrition

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06026059

RC31/20/0059

Details and patient eligibility

About

In current practice, there are various nutritional risk scores and diagnostic tools which are used in both inpatient and outpatient settings,however, in some cases, these tools cannot be used due to lack of data.

That's why a tool that doesn't require any anthropometric parameters, such as a visual food intake scale, could be useful to for medical and paramedical staff. In this way, a larger proportion of the paediatric population could benefit from nutritional screening.

Full description

HAS defines undernutrition as a state of nutritional imbalance, characterized by a negative energy and/or protein balance. This negative balance may be linked to a deficit in isolated intake and/or an increase in energy and/or protein expenditure.

In current practice, there are various nutritional risk scores and diagnostic tools which are used in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Practitioners can use discs to quickly and easily determine BMI, which corresponds to the ratio of Weight (Kg) / Height² (m). However, in some cases, these tools cannot be used due to lack of data.

That's why a tool that doesn't require any anthropometric parameters could be useful to for medical and paramedical staff. In this way, a larger proportion of the paediatric population could benefit from nutritional screening.

In adults, a visual food intake scale exists and has been validated for screening for nutritional risk. The hypothesis of this study is that the visual food intake scale could be a good tool for screening for nutritional risk in paediatrics

Enrollment: 100 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 8 to 15 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Child able to be weighed and measured
• Family with Internet access and telephone number
• Child and at least one parent present during day hospitalization,
• Child able to respond to the SEFI® scale and having completed the 3-day food intake at home

Exclusion criteria

• Children and/or parents with comprehension and/or communication difficulties
• Children with any pathological condition making interpretation of results difficult from the investigator's point of view
• Children receiving nutritional support: enteral and parenteral nutrition.
• Child with nutritional follow-up

Trial design

100 participants in 1 patient group

interview with the dietician

Description:

Initially, parent(s) and child will be interviewed together, details of the dietary record, as well as the data needed to calculate the nutritional risk score will be obtained. The interview will then be only with the child, he will be asked to determine, on his/her own, the portion of food he/she thinks he/she ate the previous evening, using the SEFI score. Finally, one of the two parents will determine, on their own, the portion of food they think their child ate the previous evening, using the SEFI score.