Introduction:

the delay in the start of enteral nutrition (EN) or late EN, unlike early EN, is associated with adverse outcomes in critically ill patients.

Objectives:

to correlate the start time of nutrition with mortality, days of mechanical ventilation, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and hospital length of stay.

Material and methods:

a retrospective, comparative, cohort study of hospitalized patients during the period from January to July 2022 in the ICU of the ABC Medical Center Observatory Campus was carried out. All hospitalized patients who received enteral nutrition were included.

Results:

of 242 patients, 62.8% were male, with a median age of 65 (62.8-67.7) years, 22% of the population required mechanical ventilation, finding an overall mortality of 6.3%. A significant difference was found with p = 0.001, with an OR 0.210 (0.087-0.509) in the mortality of patients with early nutrition 5.5 vs 13.2% late nutrition, without difference in days of mechanical ventilation, ICU or hospitalization length of stay.

Conclusions:

delayed EN was significantly associated with less ICU-free days, longer intrahospital length of stay and mortality, compared with early EN.