Research Article Missed Opportunities for Nutritional Rehabilitation in Children Admitted to Surgical Wards Pooja Dave, 1,2 Somashekhar Nimbalkar, 2 Ajay Phatak, 3 Rajendra Desai, 3 and Shirish Srivastava 1 1 Department of Surgery, Pramukhswami Medical College, Charutar Arogya Mandal, Karamsad, Gujarat 388325, India 2 Department of Pediatrics, Pramukhswami Medical College, Charutar Arogya Mandal, Karamsad, Gujarat 388325, India 3 Central Research Services, Chautar Arogya Mandal, Karamsad, Gujarat 388325, India Correspondence should be addressed to Somashekhar Nimbalkar; somu somu@yahoo.com Received 31 December 2015; Revised 9 May 2016; Accepted 23 May 2016 Academic Editor: Cosimo Sperti Copyright © 2016 Pooja Dave et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Malnutrition in children has serious health and economic consequences. We studied documentation of malnutrition, actual prevalence, and treatment given in children admitted to surgical wards. Methods. Retrospective study of 154 patients aged <5 yrs admitted to general surgical, orthopedic, and otorhinolaryngology wards. Records were evaluated for completeness of data, way of documentation, and data quality. Descriptive analysis was done. If malnutrition was not identifed and/or proper action was not taken, it was defned as a “missed opportunity.” Results. Of 154 records audited, 100 (64.94%) were males, 108 (70.13%) were from general surgery ward, and 78 (50.65%) were residing in suburban area. Te mean (SD) age of the study population was 2.32 (1.16) years whereas mean (SD) duration of stay was 5.84 (6.29) days. Weight and height were mentioned in 116 (75.32%) and 8 (5.19%) records, respectively, mostly by nonsurgical personnel. Documentation and treatment of malnutrition were poor. Out of 106 apparently correct weight records, 19 (17.93%) children were severely undernourished and 30 (28.30%) were moderately undernourished whereas 20 (18.87%) children were not undernourished but required nutritional attention. Conclusion. Tere is poor documentation of nutritional indicators of children admitted to surgical wards. From data that was available, it is apparent that malnutrition is at high levels. “Identifcation” and hence management of malnutrition need more attention. 1. Introduction Approximately 60 million children, under fve, accounting for nearly 50% of all India’s children are underweight, about 45% children are stunted, and 20% are wasted, suggesting acute malnutrition [1]. Malnutrition among Indian children is twice higher than that in Sub-Saharan Africa and almost fve times higher than in China [1]. To improve nutritional status in children under 6 and maternal health, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme was launched in 1975 [2]. Since then, many measures have been taken to combat the condition resulting in a decline in its prevalence. But decline has been slower than what has been achieved in other countries with comparable socioeconomic indicators [3]. Malnutrition contributes signifcantly to some of the most common causes of mortality in children, in developing countries like India [4]. Malnutrition has been identifed in the hospitalized pop- ulation, up to 25–50% in industrialized as well as developing countries, for more than a decade [5–13]. About 40% of malnutrition was found in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients [14] as well as under-fve children admitted to pediatric ward [15] in two Indian hospitals. Hospital malnutrition is associated with higher rates of morbidity and mortality [12, 16]. Te mortality rate of children with complicated severe acute malnutrition that receive treatment in inpatient setups has remained unacceptably high [17]. Hospital malnutrition is associated with delayed recovery, prolonged hospital stay, and increased healthcare costs and a higher early readmission rate [12, 16–18]. Moreover, deterioration of nutritional status Hindawi Publishing Corporation Scientifica Volume 2016, Article ID 3470621, 5 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/3470621