Recomendaciones para la atención nutricional hospitalaria en pacientes con covid-19. Revisión de la literatura

Introduction: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) may require the hospitalization of patients in the most severe cases. Therefore, it is necessary to establish theoretical and practical recommendations for nutritional interventions at hospitals.

Objective: To identify recommendations given to hospital health care teams for providing nutritional care to inpatients over 18 years of age infected with COVID-19.

Materials and methods: A literature review was conducted in PubMed using the following search strategy: publication period: December 2019 to March 2020; publication language: English and Chinese; search terms: “Coronavirus Infection”, “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome” and “Nutrition for Vulnerable Groups”.

Results: A total of 283 articles were retrieved after completing the initial search, of which 6 were selected to analyze nutrition care practices in the hospital setting. The areas of research of these publications were nutritional support, the evaluation of interventions aimed to manage and reduce the severity of pulmonary and hepatic complications, and the effects of antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids in adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Conclusion: Recommendations for providing nutritional care to COVID-19 inpatients are based on nutritional care processes and food service management. According to these recommendations, nutritional risk assessment strategies should be established, nutritional support interventions aimed at reducing the risk of malnutrition should be carried out, and the risks associated with the administration of nutritional support, as well as COVID-19-related metabolic disorders, should be monitored.