HOMEFOOD Study - Home Delivered Food and Nutrition Therapy for Discharged Geriatric Hospital Patients

Malnutrition is common in older people admitted to the hospital and can worsen after discharge. Therefore, it seems necessary to integrate nutritional support not only during the hospital stay but also in the period after discharge. The aim of this Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is to test whether nutritional support provided by a dietitian, using Nutrition Care Process in combination with delivered meals designed for the needs of older adults (group 1), improves nutritional status, muscle strength, physical function, quality of life and as a secondary outcome re-hospitalization and/or mortality of geriatric patients with malnutrition risk after discharge compared to currently used standard care (group 2 = control).

Time and work plan:

After 12 months

• Need identification and product ideas ready
• Packaging material ready
• Estimate of the feasibility of meals for old adults
• Allowances from the ethical committee, the data protection committee, the Ph.D. committee of the Faculty of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Iceland.

After 24 months

• The last participant recruited
• End of intervention

After 36 months

• End of follow up
• Database ready
• First paper submitted

Methods-Intervention

This 24-week randomized controlled trial will randomize the participants (N = 200) to two groups. The dietitian (Ph.D. student) will perform a total of 5 home visits during the study period to participants in the intervention group. Meals will be delivered weekly to the participants. Outcome parameters will be measured just before discharge from the hospital and after 12 weeks and at 24 weeks in the home of the participants. Data on hospital re-admission and mortality will also be followed up at 12 months.

The aim of the intervention is to implement individual dietetic advice and optimize participants' nutritional status by following the Nutritional Care Process*, involving nutritional assessment, diagnosis, intervention, monitoring, and evaluation. Dietary counseling, motivation, and education will help to maintain participants' body weight, and ensure that energy and protein requirements as well as for other critical nutrients are achieved.

*The Nutrition Care Process (NCP) reflects the current state of the art in nutrition care and is designed to improve the consistency and quality of individualized care for patients and the predictability of the patient outcomes. It is not intended to standardize nutrition care for each patient, but to establish a standardized process for providing care.

To achieve the aim, the dietitian (Ph.D. student) will meet the participants in the intervention group, six times.

• The day before discharge where baseline measurements will be done,
• 1 week after discharge,
• 3 weeks after discharge,
• 6 weeks after discharge,
• 9 weeks after discharge, and
• 12 weeks after discharge where endpoint measurements will be done. The dietitian (Ph.D. student) will perform an individual nutritional assessment focusing on dietary intake, activity level and weight of each participant, as a basis for developing an individualized nutrition care plan consistent with estimated nutritional requirements and nutritional rehabilitation goals. Total fluid, energy- and protein requirements will be estimated for each patient. To assess dietary intake, the dietitian will perform a dietary history interview at each visit to determine fluid, energy and protein intake of the participant. Strategies for achieving fluid, energy and protein requirements and achieving compliance included dietary counseling with attention to nutritional risk factors, timing, size and frequency of meals, recommendations for nutrient dense foods and drinks, and provision of educational material.

If relevant, the dietitian will:

• initiate the prescription of oral nutritional supplements with high energy and protein density that will be reimbursed by Health Insurance.
• Contact providers of meals-on-wheels to change the meals to high energy and protein dense menu or to mashed/puréed food.
• Recommend use of vitamin D, calcium and other vitamins-minerals considered necessary to achieve optimal nutritional status,
• Invite home care and community nursing staff to participate in home visits to achieve the best possible outcome for the patient by interdisciplinary collaboration.

If considered relevant the participants will receive a short consultation by telephone by the dietitian to give advice and to stimulate compliance to the proposed nutritional care plan in-between the home visits.

The control group will meet the dietitian/staff for baseline, 12 weeks and at the 24-week endpoint measurements. The control group will not receive any dietary counseling or education during the study period which reflects current clinical practice.

The Ph.D. students' contributions A Ph.D. student in clinical nutrition (Berglind Soffía Blondal) will be the project manager of the intervention study on a day-to-day base. The student will be supervised by Prof. Alfons Ramel and Assoc. Prof. Ólöf Guðný Geirsdóttir, both on the Faculty of Food Science and Nutrition. The student will be involved in application work to the ethical committee, screening, conduct of the intervention study, data work and writing of scientific papers.

Ethics The study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of Landspitali- University Hospital of Iceland and informed written consent will be obtained from all participants. The study can only improve the nutritional status of geriatric patients that take part in the intervention groups. The participants in the control group, however, won't get any nutritional interventions and therefore have a greater risk of re-admissions and a worse overall outcome compared to the intervention groups.

Inclusion criteria

• Patients of the geriatric units at the University Hospital of Iceland discharging home to independent living
• A score of 20 or above on the Mini-Mental State Evaluation (MMSE) form
• Being at nutritional risk according to the validated nutritional risk screening tool (NRS-2002, score 3+)
• The capability of eating orally

Exclusion criteria

• Living at a nursing home
• MMSE score of under 20
• No nutritional risk