Background: In this study, a report of dietitian-led nutrition interventions for patients with COVID-19 during ICU and ward-based rehabilitation is provided. As knowledge of COVID-19 and its medical treatments evolved through the course of the pandemic, dietetic-led interventions were compared between surge 1 (S1) and surge 2 (S2).
Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted of patients admitted to the ICU service in a large academic hospital (London, UK). Clinical and nutrition data were collected during the first surge (March-June 2020; n = 200) and the second surge (November 2020-March 2021; n = 253) of COVID-19.
Results: A total of 453 patients were recruited. All required individualized dietetic-led interventions during ICU admission as the ICU nutrition protocol did not meet nutritional needs. Feed adjustments for deranged renal function (p = 0.001) and propofol calories (p = 0.001) were more common in S1, whereas adjustment for gastrointestinal dysfunction was more common in S2 (p = 0.001). One-third of all patients were malnourished on ICU admission, and all lost weight in ICU, with a mean (SD) total percentage loss of 8.8% (6.9%). Further weight loss was prevented over the remaining hospital stay with continued dietetic-led interventions.
Conclusions: COVID-19 patients have complex nutritional needs due to malnutrition on admission and ongoing weight loss. Disease complexity and evolving nature of medical management required multifaceted dietetic-led nutritional strategies, which differed between surges.
Keywords: COVID-19; dietitian/dietician; intensive care; malnutrition; nutrition; weight loss.