In her statement on Wednesday, she said that this tool, called the Simple Nutrition Screening Tool (SNST), has a simple working pattern and can be used in less than five minutes.
"This nutritional screening tool is very simple. It does not require anthropometric measurements that have been an obstacle so far and can be done in a short period of time of between three and five minutes," she remarked.
Susetyowati explained that this SNST uses six questions to assess a person's nutritional status.
She noted that the SNST nutritional screening tool had been compared with other nutritional screening tools proven to be valid and reliable, demonstrating its validity and reliability on par with other established tools.
She pointed out that malnutrition remains one of the issues faced by health workers in hospitals, as the numbers are still relatively high, especially in developing countries.
Susetyowati stated that malnutrition is defined as a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of nutrients that produces adverse effects on body composition, function, and clinical impact.
She attributed the emergence of malnutrition cases in hospitals to a lack of routine measurement and recording of height and weight as well as limited skills in assessing nutritional status through anthropometry and biochemistry.
"This deficiency means that medical records related to monitoring patient food intake are reduced, so nutritional intake is largely undetected and monitoring of nutritional status is not carried out routinely," she remarked.
Susetyowati emphasized that nutritional screening is necessary for all inpatients to predict the probability of improvement or worsening of nutritional impacts and to determine the effect of nutritional interventions.
"Weight loss, body mass index, and lack of food intake are the main elements in defining malnutrition," she stated.
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Translator: Katriana, Luqman Hakim
Editor: Anton Santoso
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