The goal of this observational study is to study the presence and consequences of malnutrition risk in hospitalized internal medicine patients.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. How many patients are at risk of malnutrition at admission?
2. Is there a link between an existing malnutrition risk and nutrition therapy that the patients receive?
3. Is there a link between an existing malnutrition risk and clinical outcome (e.g. length of hospital stay, mortality, need for rehospitalization)?

Participants will be screened for malnutrition risk at admission using a validated questionnaire (Nutritional Risk Screening 2002). All relevant data regarding hospital stay will be obtained from the clinical information system after discharge.

Malnutrition is associated with adverse clinical outcome in hospitalized patients. Therefore, systematic screening for malnutrition risk at admission is recommended by almost all medical expert societies to identify patients who will benefit from nutritional therapy.

Although clinical and economic benefit of systematic malnutrition screening have been shown in various settings and for different patient groups, such screening is still not mandatory in most countries. In part, establishment of malnutrition screening is hampered by discrepant findings on the prevalence of malnutrition risk and the lack of evidence on a local level.

Hence, in this observational study the investigators examine the results of systematic malnutrition screening in internal medicine patients admitted to a university hospital in Northeast Germany. In particular, the investigators aim to determine the prevalence of malnutrition risk at hospital admission, the association between malnutrition risk and nutrition therapy as well as clinical outcome in different disciplines of internal medicine.

For this purpose, all patients undergo screening for malnutrition risk at admission using a validated instrument (Nutritional Risk Screening 2002). All relevant data regarding the patients' hospital stay will be obtained from the clinical information system after discharge.

Inclusion Criteria:

• hospital admission for gastrointestinal, endocrine, rheumatic, or nephrological condition
• provision of informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

• inability to provide consent
• unfeasibility to perform malnutrition screening within 48h after admission

Patients will be recruited at University Medicine Greifswald (Northeast Germany). Internal medicine patients with any gastrointestinal, endocrine, rheumatic, or nephrological disease admitted to the hospital will be identified in the respective wards and will be approached for study inclusion.