Agreement between nutritional risk screening tools and anthropometry in hospitalized pediatric patients

The use of malnutrition screening tools has been recommended to identify the risk of malnutrition among hospitalized children. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the Screening Tool for Risk on Nutritional Status and Growth (STRONGkids), the Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Pediatrics (STAMP), and anthropometric nutritional parameters to identify malnutrition in hospitalized children.Data recorded in the nutrition sector for 672 pediatric patients hospitalized between 2019 and 2020 were used to complete the STRONGkids and STAMP tools. To test for associations, the chi-square test or Fisher-Freeman-Halton Exact Test were employed, accepting a p-value <0.05 as the threshold for significance. To determine agreement, the Kappa coefficient was applied.Patients with a mean age of 5 years and 7 months were classified as at high nutritional risk by STRONGkids and STAMP in 10.1% (n = 68) and 24.3% (n = 163) of cases, respectively. A significant association (p < 0.05) was identified between all parameters studied for both tools. For STRONGkids, the chi-square test were as follows: BMI/Age, 69.707; Height/Age, 37.730; Weight/Age, 72.202; and Weight/Height, 60.595, whereas for STAMP, they were BMI/Age, 79.620; Height/Age, 75.246; Weight/Age, 91.034; and Weight/Height, 57.227. When compared, the two tools showed significant moderate agreement (κ = 0.448; p < 0.001).STAMP classified a higher percentage of patients as being at high nutritional risk when compared with STRONGkids, and both tools had a significant association when compared with anthropometric parameters. Screening tools are easy to apply and can be used to identify the risk of malnutrition in this population.