Post-discharge complications and hospital readmissions are associated with nutritional risk and malnutrition status in a cohort of Canadian pediatric patients

Abstract Background This study constitutes a secondary analysis of a prospective cohort aiming to evaluate the potential correlation between nutritional risk and status at admission with the occurrence of post-discharge complications and hospital readmissions in children receiving care at high resource Centres. Methods Data was collected from 5 Canadian tertiary pediatric Centers between 2012 and 2016. Nutritional risk and status were evaluated at hospital admission with validated tools (STRONGkids and Subjective Global Nutrition Assessment [SGNA]) and anthropometric measurements. Thirty days after discharge, occurrence of post-discharge complications and hospital readmission were documented. Results A total of 360 participants were included in the study (median age, 6.1 years; median length of stay, 5 days). Following discharge, 24.1% experienced complications and 19.5% were readmitted to the hospital. The odds of experiencing complications were nearly tripled for participants with a high nutritional risk compared to a low risk (OR = 2.85; 95% CI [1.08–7.54]; P = 0.035) and those whose caregivers reported having a poor compared to a good appetite (OR = 2.96; 95% CI [1.59–5.50]; P