Organised By
Organised By
1Dietetics Department, National University Hospital, Singapore;
2School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, Australia;
3Biostatistics Unit, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Height assessment is a major component in Body Mass Index which is important to determine the nutrition status of a patient. Accurate measurement of height is difficult in hospitalized patients because about 30% of them are unfit for height measurement due to various clinical conditions. The study aimed to validate tape-height measurement against the standing height measurement on hospitalized and healthy participants and to derive a formula to calculate the actual height.
METHODOLOGY: Ninety-nine hospitalized participants (mean age 48.9 ±13.9; range 21-80) (49 males, 50 females) and one hundred healthy participants (mean age 36.8 ± 13.6; range 21-77) (50 males, 50 females) were recruited for the study. Standing height was measured using a stadiometer. Recumbent length was measured using a two meters-long measuring tape.
RESULTS: Using Bland Altman analysis, 97% of the difference between recumbent length and standing height lies between mean ± 2 standard deviations for healthy participants and 96% for hospitalized participants. The regression equation developed using data from healthy participants is Standing height (SH) = 0.993 Recumbent length (RL) – 0.943cm, (r2=0.982).
CONCLUSION: The recumbent length is always more than the standing height. We propose a simplified equation for practical use as SH = (RL – 1)cm.
Email: wei_yee_wong@nuhs.edu.sg
Keywords: recumbent, height, tape
No of words = 250 words without keywords