Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between nutritional support and anthropometric measurements, pressure ulcers and some biochemical parameters in intensive care unit patients.

Materials and Methods: The study data were collected by retrospectively analyzing the files of 168 patients with a mean age of 72.6±9.53 years who were hospitalized in intensive care units (ICU) between October 2022 and 2023. Demographic characteristics, hospitalisation diagnosis, underlying diseases, APACHE II scores, feeding times (intermittent, continuous), feeding route (enteral, parenteral), type of feeding route, presence of pressure ulcers, duration of ICU stay, reasons for ICU admission and some biochemical findings were obtained.

Results: The mean Body Mass Index (BMI) of the patients was 23.8±3.12 kg/m2; 53.5% were parenterally and 46.4% were enteral fed, 72.0% of the enteral fed individuals had nasogastric tubes and 27.9% had PEG. When multivariate analysis was performed with the significant factors of univariate analysis, it was found that the change in serum prealbumin level between day 1 and 21 was significant (p<0.001). According to BMI classes, the energy and protein values per body weight of the underweight subjects were significantly higher than the normal, overweight and obese subjects (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Early nutritional therapy in intensive care unit patients decreased the development of malnutrition, improved the clinical picture of the patients, and significantly increased prealbumin levels, while biochemical findings such as albumin and total protein values did not change statistically. Further large-scale studies are needed to evaluate the effects of nutritional support therapy.