Screening methods for the nutritional status assessment in young children with an intestinal infection

Abstract

The nutritional status assessment in young children with infectious diseases is an important and necessary measure in the practice of a pediatrician.

Nutrition is an important component of therapeutic measures for various childhood diseases from the time of illness; a child may have difficulty eating and not receive an age-appropriate amount of nutrients. Untimely nutritional support harms the course of the disease and can lead to the development of nutritional deficiency.

The highest risk of developing nutritional status disorders exists in children with acute intestinal infections. Patients have dyspeptic symptoms (nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea), which makes the natural consumption of food difficult. Specialized enteral nutrition in acute intestinal infections plays an important role — it restores the balanced nutritional status of a sick child, maintains the intestinal microbiota, and reduces the duration of intestinal infections.

This article describes the modern principles of screening assessment of nutritional status in young children with intestinal infections. The main laboratory markers are shown (concentration of albumin, transthyretin, transferrin, and the total number of circulating lymphocytes) in which the changes may indicate the risk of developing nutritional deficiency and a more severe course of the disease. In an infectious hospital, screening methods to assess nutritional status can be used to timely detect eating disorders, such as the method for assessing the risk of malnutrition (STRONGkids), screening for malnutrition in pediatrics (STAMP), and the universal screening scale for malnutrition (MUST).

Different scales and tools are used for screening; thus, further research is needed to determine the most optimal method of nutritional status assessment in young children with infectious pathology.

Keywords

nutritional status / nutritional assessment / nutrition index / intestinal infections / young children

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Erpuleva Y.V., Rumiantsev R.E.