Nutrition Support Teams: A Systematic Review

Background: The concept of a nutrition support team (NST) was first introduced at the end of the 20th century in the US and Europe. Expected benefits include reduced (inappropriate) prescription of (par)enteral nutrition; however, to the authors' knowledge, no recent review has assessed the effectiveness of NSTs. Therefore, this systematic review evaluated the effectiveness of NSTs with respect to the prevalence of adult patients receiving (par)enteral nutrition.

Methods: Five literature databases were searched and completed by citing searches. Studies on NSTs that were published between 2000 and 2018 in Western countries, applied a comparative design, and contained at least outcome data on the prevalence of (par)enteral nutrition were included. Analyses were mainly descriptive because of high heterogeneity that prevented meta-analyses.

Results: The 27 included studies mainly originated from the UK and US. Only 1 of the included studies was a randomized trial; the other studies had a pre-post design (n = 17) or compared groups in a nonrandomized way. All but 2 studies were performed in acute care hospitals, and 5 studies focused only on intensive care patients. There was conflicting evidence of whether NSTs lead to reduction or increase in patients starting parenteral nutrition (PN); however, weak evidence suggested that NSTs might lead to an increase in the ratio of enteral nutrition to PN use and might decrease inappropriate PN use.

Conclusion: Although almost all studies concluded in favor of NSTs, the evidence base is weak and insufficient because of a lack of well-designed studies and successful outcomes.