Hospital food service strategies to improve food intakes among inpatients: A systematic review

• Main Authors: Hamid, S.B.A (Author), Nor, N.M (Author), Osman, N.S (Author), Rahamat, S. (Author), Sharif, M.S.M (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2021
• Series: Nutrients
• Subjects: adult; aged; ambiguity; body weight change; caloric intake; feeding behavior; Feeding Behavior; female; food intake; Food intake; Food Service, Hospital; Foodservice; Hospital; hospital food service; hospital patient; human; Humans; Intervention; male; malnutrition; Malnutrition; meal; Meals; nutritional status; Nutritional Status; Outcome Assessment, Health Care; patient satisfaction; Patient Satisfaction; Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; protein intake; quality control; quality of life; Review; Scopus; systematic review; Web of Science
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher; View in Scopus

 This review aims to identify hospital food service strategies to improve food consumption among hospitalized patients. A systematic search that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria was manually conducted through Web of Science and Scopus by an author, and the ambiguities were clarified by two senior authors. The quality assessment was separately conducted by two authors, and the ambiguities were clarified with all the involved authors. Qualitative synthesis was used to analyze and summarized the findings. A total of 2432 articles were identified by searching the da-tabases, and 36 studies were included. The majority of the studies applied menu modifications and meal composition interventions (n = 12, 33.3%), or included the implementation of the new food service system (n = 8, 22.2%), protected mealtimes, mealtime assistance and environmental intervention (n = 7, 19.4%), and attractive meal presentation (n = 3, 8.3%). Previous studies that used multidisciplinary approaches reported a significant improvement in food intake, nutritional status, patient satisfaction and quality of life (n = 6, 16.7%). In conclusion, it is suggested that healthcare institutions consider applying one or more of the listed intervention strategies to enhance their food-service operation in the future. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.