Impact of Clinical Nutritional Practices and Holistic Care Interventions of Pediatric Oncology Patients: A Single Centre Experience from Jammu and Kashmir
Keywords:
Nutrition, Pediatric Cancer, Anthropometry, Nutritional InterventionAbstract
Introduction: Nutrition is a fledgling determinant in managing and suppressing various chronic and life-threatening diseases like cancer. Nutritional status of pediatric oncology patients is particularly an important determinant of their ability to cope with the demands of cancer and its treatment, and ensure proper growth and development. Nutritional assessment and grading each child per their degree of malnutrition helps devise adequate and individualized nutritional intervention. Adequate and timely intervention can largely contribute in improving the nutritional status of the patients and therefore, overall outcome of the treatment.There are limited studies done to understand the area of impact of nutritional interventions in improving the nutritional status of children affected with cancer, therefore with this aim we conducted a study to see the impact of nutritional intervention on nutritional status. Materials and Methods: This, first of its kind study on understanding the impact of nutritional intervention on pediatric oncology patients was conducted in the medical oncology department of Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Soura,Srinagar,India, Srinagar, from 1st May 2018 to 31st December 2019. Anthropometric measurement, demographic profiles, and etiological analysis were done and collected pre and post-intervention. 24 hours dietary recalls were collected pre and post-intervention. Food frequency tables were also put forward. Besides these, personal interviews and observation methods were used. Results: Nutritional interventions had a measurable positive outcome on the nutritional profiles of the pediatric oncology patients in SKIMS, Soura,Srinagar,India. The grades of nutritional status substantially improved from 46.4%, 24.8%, 16%, and 8% of the well-nourished, mildly malnourished, moderately malnourished, and severely malnourished, to 56.8%, 20%, 12.8%, and 4.8%, respectively, clearly indicating that with appropriate dietary advice and interventions there is a significant impact on improving the grade of malnutrition.
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Copyright (c) 2021 Faisal R Guru, Rakia Koul, Saquib Zaffar Bandey, Shumail Bashir, Saqib Ahmad Shah, Haider Guru, Shadab Maqsood, Khushnuma Amin, Aanisah Shafi, Gull Mohammad Bhat
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.