To investigate the difference of serum prealbumin in hospitalized children and its value in Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Pediatrics (STAMP) in hospitalized children.

867 hospitalized children were recruited from March 2013 to April 2014 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University. All the patients were assessed using STAMP and collected venous blood sample for measuring serum prealbumin within 24 hours after admission. All the patients were surveyed for information regarding gender, age, dietary changes, etc. and their clinical data and laboratory results during hospitalization collected. The patients were divided into high malnutrition risk group(HMRG) and low malnutrition risk group (LMRG) according to STAMP scores upon admission.

There were 463 children (53.4%) in HMRG, and 404 in LMRG (46.6%). Compared with the LMRG, the HMRG had significantly lower serum prealbumin [(144.7±50.6)mg/L vs. (173.6±71.3)mg/L, t=6.795, P=0.000]. After controlling for age, course of disease, white blood cell count, albumin, glutamic-oxalacetic transaminase, C-reactive protein in covariance analysis, the HMRG still had significantly lower serum prealbumin than the LMRG [estimate (95% CI): 139.8(134.9-144.8)mg/L vs. 157.9(151.9-163.8)mg/L, F=20.433, P=0.000). Clinical cure rates in HMRG with low serum prealbumin, HMRG with normal serum prealbumin, LMRG with low serum prealbumin, and LMRG with normal serum prealbumin were 62.9% (95/151), 80.5% (251/312), 77.1% (27/35), and 98.1% (362/369) (χ²=112.80, P=0.000), respectively; incidences of hospital acquired infection were 21.9% (33/151), 8.7%(27/312), 22.9% (8/35), and 1.9% (7/369) (χ²=63.55, P=0.000), respectively.

High malnutrtion could be distinguished more accurately using the combination of the assessment of malnutrition screening tools and serum prealbumin measurement.

Nutritional risk; Screening Tool for the Assessment of Malnutrition in Pediatrics; Prealbumin; Children