Malnutrition 'self-screening' with 'MUST' in hospital outpatients predicts health-care outcomes

. The extent to which‘self-screening’ can predict health outcomes and use of health-care resources is unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate thepredictive validity of outpatients ‘self-screening’ with ‘MUST’.The study involved 205 patients (mean age 55 (SD 17) years; 56% male) randomly recruited from gastroenterology (40%) and non-gastroenterology clinics (60%), who screened themselves for malnutrition risk (80.5% at low risk, and 19.6% at medium + high risk).Health-care use was collected prospectively from electronic records during the subsequent 6 months (hospital admissions, length ofhospital stay (LOS) and outpatient appointments (OP)).Outpatients at risk of malnutrition from ‘self-screening’ with ‘MUST’ experienced signicantly more hospital admissions (includingemergency admissions), signicantly more outpatient appointments and had longer hospital stays (table). When adjusted for age, sex andtype of clinic (gastroenterology v. non-gastroenterology), length of hospital stay became signicant, admissions and outpatient appoint-ments remained signicant.