Epidemiological Characteristics of Home Enteral Nutrition in Patients from a Chinese Tertiary Hospital in 2021: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background and Objectives: Home enteral nutrition was reported to be a treatment reducing malnutrition rates and improving the rational allocation of medical resources. We aim to investigate the epidemiological character-istics and improved the management of home enteral nutrition. Methods and Study Design: 3953 patients with home enteral nutrition were enrolled in West China Hospital, located in Sichuan province, between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021. Results: 7238 visit records (3429 females and 3809 males) were included. The median age was 59.0, with the age from 1 to 115. The top two diseases were oncologic disorders (40.3%) and di-gestive disorders (15.9%). Oral nutritional supplements (86.2%) was the major treatment of home enteral nutri-tion. The median daily energy intake and daily protein intake were 575.1 kcal and 31.2 g. 25.8%, 39.3%, 34.9% patients choose online clinic (1867), offline clinic (2843) and hospital to home (2528) respectively. Interestingly, 63.6% patients were revisited, and the rate of online clinic, offline clinic and hospital to home was increasingly lower (91.9%, 71.5%, 33.8%) among them, revealing online clinic improving the revisit rate. Most patients lived in Chengdu (60.5%), and 67.4% patients from Chengdu were revisited. The median monthly cost of hospital to home patients ( yen 1863.8) was higher than the total median monthly cost ( yen 1714.5), illustrating the cost may re-duce the revisit rate. Conclusions: Distance, cost and convenience may be the key factors to determine the meth-od of visit and revisit in patients of home enteral nutrition. Online clinic may enhance the patients' follow-up.