Conectar
To describe nurses' experiences in managing malnutrition in hospitalized adults and providing support along an interprofessional nutritional standard.
A qualitative study using focus group discussions and an inductive approach to data analysis based on Braun and Clarke's reflexive thematic analysis.
Three focus groups were conducted with nurses from a large tertiary hospital with experience in general and specialized medical care.
The overarching theme of ‘Malnutrition receives high priority’ highlighted the strong influence of the nutritional standard. With the adoption of tasks, malnutrition was becoming an important topic in clinical practice and nursing activities could be further described in three interacting sub-themes: (1) Exploration of an individual patient situation to identify possible causes of malnutrition (‘malnutrition is considered individually’); (2) development of individual care plans depending on identified problems, causes and symptoms (‘malnutrition comes into focus’); and (3) recognizing challenges when interventions sometimes were unsuccessful (‘malnutrition is not a uniform label’).
The results indicate that nurses are well positioned to improve nutritional support for patients, even in the context of emerging trends in healthcare such as digitalization. Achieving this requires a person-centred approach with individualized goals, structured interprofessional collaboration, and shared decision-making with patients and healthcare professionals.
The study highlights the importance of adherence to nutritional standards, further integration of artificial intelligence–based technologies into clinical practice, regular training in early detection of malnutrition, and support for shared decision-making and individualized nutritional care planning.
No patient or public contribution.
The Consolidated criteria for Reporting Qualitative research (COREQ) checklist were used according to the recommendations of the EQUATOR guidelines.
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