Nutritional screening is a first-line process of identifying patients who are already malnourished or at risk of becoming so; nutritional assessment is a detailed investigation to identify and quantify specific nutritional problems.
Good nutrition is fundamental for health, healing and recovery from illness and injury. Malnutrition is associated with muscle wasting, impaired respiratory and cardiac function, decreased mobility, susceptibility to infection and delayed wound healing, depression and lethargy. Many factors including disease predispose to malnourishment and indicators of malnutrition are found in community patients.
The Health Service Executive has a nutrition screening programme in place in the community and I am referring your question to HSE for further details.