Identify three factors that place patients at risk for poor nutritional status and impaired wound healing. Describe how to conduct a patient nutrition history and assessment. Discuss three ways nurses can promote improved nutritional status for patients at risk for impaired wound healing. Wound healing depends upon the adequate intake and absorption of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, proteins, and calories. Such complications include sepsis, abscesses, respiratory failure, decreased wound healing, and death.
Malnutrition results from insufficient intake to meet the patient's metabolic needs.
Most patients with malnutrition are deficient in both calories and protein. When patients are acutely ill and malnourished they have an increased incidence of concurrent illnesses, as well as a sevenfold increase in mortality. An initial assessment of the patient's nutritional status will provide health care professionals with the necessary information to determine the patient's risk or degree of malnutrition. A nutritional assessment is the first step in providing the health care provider with information to develop an individualized nutritional plan. Nutritional assessments should not be left solely for the professional nurse, but should be a multidisciplinary approach consisting of the physician, pharmacist, and dietitian.