Dietic Assessment
Use when asked to administer, score, or explain a Dietetic Assessment — a dietitian-driven nutritional evaluation computing a MUST score and GLIM malnutrition diagnosis — grounded in FormExamples/form-examples; related to nutrition-assessment.
A UK-aligned, dietitian-driven dietetic assessment: a comprehensive evaluation of a patient's nutritional status, eating patterns, medical history, and food environment, conducted by a registered dietitian. It computes a MUST (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool) score with a GLIM malnutrition diagnosis, a composite nutrition risk level, and a set of safety-critical flags, producing a signed dietetic report with a nutrition care plan.
Scoring
Primary instrument: MUST — a 0–6 score summing BMI band, unplanned weight loss percentage, and an acute-disease effect flag. MUST risk category: 0 = low, 1 = medium, ≥ 2 = high.
Secondary instruments: GLIM (malnutrition diagnosis requiring ≥ 1 phenotypic criterion and ≥ 1 etiologic criterion, staged moderate or severe), NRS-2002 (0–7, inpatient risk, ≥ 3 at-risk), SARC-F (0–10, sarcopenia case-finding, ≥ 4 at-risk), refeeding-syndrome risk per NICE CG32, and stool/swallowing scales (Bristol Stool Form Scale, IDDSI) where relevant.
What it covers
Nutritional status and eating-pattern history; anthropometric measurements feeding the MUST score; medical and food-environment history; the GLIM phenotypic/etiologic criteria; refeeding-risk screening; and a signed nutrition care plan.
Relationship to nutrition-assessment
This assessment and Nutrition Assessment overlap substantially (both use MUST as a core instrument); this one is explicitly a dietitian-led, more comprehensive assessment adding GLIM diagnosis and several secondary instruments (NRS-2002, SARC-F, refeeding risk), whereas Nutrition Assessment is framed more generally.
Common pitfalls
- Using MUST alone without GLIM for a formal malnutrition diagnosis — MUST is a screening tool identifying risk; GLIM is the actual diagnostic framework requiring both a phenotypic and an etiologic criterion. Treating a high MUST score as itself a diagnosis skips a step.
- Missing refeeding-syndrome risk before starting nutritional support — starting feeding in a high-risk patient without following NICE CG32's cautious reintroduction protocol can cause serious harm.
- Not accounting for acute disease effect in the MUST score — the "acutely ill with no nutritional intake for > 5 days" criterion is easy to miss but contributes meaningfully (2 points) to the total.
Learn more
- FormExamples: dietic-assessment for the full implementation, clinical references, and worked examples.
- Nutrition Assessment for the related, more general nutritional-status assessment.