Nutrition Assessment

What Is A Nutrition Assessment Form

A Nutrition Assessment Form is a pivotal tool in evaluating the nutritional status and dietary needs of a patient. It plays a crucial role in various clinical settings, particularly when addressing issues such as weight management (both weight gain and weight loss), identifying and treating malnutrition, and planning comprehensive nutrition interventions to enhance overall health.

This form is meticulously designed to encapsulate a holistic approach to nutrition screening and assessment. It ensures a thorough and standardized collection of baseline nutritional data, critical in formulating personalized nutrition intervention programs. The form typically comprises four key sections:

• Anthropometric assessment: This includes measurements of body weight, height, Body Mass Index (BMI), and body composition, which provide essential insights into the patient's physical health status and risks of malnutrition.
• Biochemical assessment: It involves analyzing laboratory data, such as blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and nutrient deficiencies (e.g., iron deficiency anemia). This section helps in pinpointing specific nutritional deficiencies and guides the adjustment of nutrient intake.
• Clinical assessment: This section focuses on the patient's overall health and medical history, including any chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease or kidney function issues, which can significantly affect nutritional status.
• Dietary assessment: Here, dietary intake is closely examined using tools like food frequency questionnaires. It assesses the patient's eating habits, energy intake, protein intake, hydration status, and the use of nutritional supplements. This information is vital for understanding the impact of diet on the patient’s health and for planning dietary adjustments.

A comprehensive nutritional assessment, not only helps healthcare professionals in diagnosing nutritional risk but also in crafting effective, patient-centric nutrition interventions. It considers environmental factors, socioeconomic status, and the patient's clinical presentation, thus enabling a more nuanced approach to improving nutritional health and preventing future health issues related to nutrition.

How To Use This Template For Nutrition Assessment Forms

This nutrition assessment form might look like a big undertaking at first glance, but we’ve created a simple step-by-step guide to help you get comfortable conducting nutrition assessments using this template. Just follow these steps to get started.

Patient Information

The patient information section is key for getting down your patient’s contact and demographic information. This is important for identifying your patient, and for contact purposes down the road.

Anthropometric Assessment

The anthropometric assessment is the section for your patient’s measurements. Ensure your measurement equipment is accurate enough to get precise measurements. The measurements you choose to take are up to you, and we have left a section for any extra measurements you wish to note down. Indices such as IBW, ABW, TDEE or CRCL can be noted in this section as well if you choose to calculate them. 

Biochemical Assessment

The biochemical assessment refers to your patient’s lab results, and conclusions you can draw from these results. Relevant lab results might include liver function tests, hbA1c results, blood sugar tests, CBC count, or serum protein tests.

Clinical Assessment

The clinical assessment is designed to be completed using the information gathered from your session with the patient. This includes your patient’s risk factors, allergies, physical findings, activity level, and pertinent medical history.

Dietary Assessment

The dietary assessment is a key part of any nutritional assessment. There are many ways to conduct a dietary assessment, but here we have included a 24-hour recall dietary assessment. This is because it tends to be more accurate and quicker to finish than other methods of dietary assessment such as food frequency questionnaires. It’s important when filling in this section to remain unjudgmental towards your client, and to emphasize there are no “good” or “bad” foods and they should be honest about what they ate.

Sign, Date, and Store Securely

The last step is to sign your name, add the date and store this document somewhere secure due to the confidential patient health information it contains.

Who can use this printable Nutrition Assessment Form (PDF)?

Our ADIME Note template was designed with Registered Dietitians (RDs) and Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs) in mind.

Various dietetic specialties can leverage this form to enhance their practice, including:

• Pediatric nutrition: For assessing and monitoring the nutritional needs of children, focusing on growth, development, and managing conditions like chronic malnutrition or iron deficiency anemia.
• Sports dietetics: Useful in evaluating the dietary intake and nutrient balance necessary for athletes, focusing on optimizing performance and muscle mass.
• Obesity and weight loss nutrition: Assists in creating tailored nutrition intervention programs for weight management, considering factors like energy intake, food frequency, and dietary patterns.
• Oncology nutrition: Essential for addressing the unique nutritional needs and risk of malnutrition in cancer patients, including those undergoing chemotherapy or enteral nutrition.
• Geriatric nutrition: Helps in assessing the dietary needs of the elderly, focusing on issues like nutrient deficiencies, hydration status, and chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease.
• Public health nutrition: Useful in broader nutrition surveys and interventions aimed at improving community health status through healthy diets and nutrition education.

Beyond RDs and RDNs, this form is also highly valuable for other healthcare providers aiming to improve nutritional health. Registered nurses, resident physicians, and social workers can use it to assess and monitor the nutritional status of their patients, ensuring that nutritional considerations are integrated into the overall care plan. By using this form, healthcare professionals can identify nutritional risks, plan effective nutrition interventions, and contribute significantly to the overall health and future health of their patients.

Why is this form useful for dietitians?

Spaces for additional notes

We know that one template can't work for everyone, and so to customize the information you include- we've added space for additional notes you wish to take down. These spaces are included at the end of each section, so you can keep your nutrition assessment organized.

Keep it digital

One great advantage of this nutrition assessment form is that it can be filled in and stored completely digitally. The PDF is easy to complete, just click in the interactive text boxes and start typing. Keeping your nutrition assessment digital is great for improving security, and accessibility, and saving time on handwriting or fixing errors by hand.

Benefits of Nutrition Assessment Form Templates

Non-region specific

Regardless of the units you prefer, this template will work for you. Take measurements in feet, inches, meters, centimeters, or even furlongs, as long as you are consistent with what you use, and adjust how you calculate unit-specific indices such as BMI.

Comprehensive

Our nutrition assessment form covers four key sections, as well as includes space for your patient's information, additional notes, additional anthropometric measurements, and your signature and date.

Includes dietary assessment

Use one template for your client's nutrition and dietary assessments with the included 24-hour recall table at the end of this template. You can save time hunting for multiple different forms for your client, and your client can get their assessment done in a single session- a win-win for both of you!

Standardize your nutrition assessments

It's important you ask every client certain questions every time you see them to ensure you have identified key information such as allergies, risk factors, or medication they are currently taking. Having a template to remind you of the questions to ask during the nutritional assessment is a great way to standardize the way you interact with your patients, and ensure you are giving each patient the best possible treatment in their session with you.

Include your patient information

Don't forget key details like your patient's date of birth or address again! With dedicated spaces in our patient information header, you can ensure the nutrition assessment will be filed under the correct patient- whether that's digital or old-school filing!