The aim of this study is to determine the nutritional status, and factors affecting malnutrition in older people staying in hospitals.
Objectives:
- To recruit a sample of older people in hospital
- To collect information on nutritional status, satisfaction with food-related life and experience with access to food in hospital.
- To assess the staffing attitudes to nutritional care of the older adult
- To undertake an audit of therapeutic ('special') diets served in hospitals, with respect to their nutritional adequacy and wastage
- To investigate predictors and correlates of malnutrition within the hospital setting and compare these relationships with those previously identified in care homes and the community.
- To make recommendations for practice to improve the nutritional status of hospitalised older adults.