Incidence and risk factors for enteral nutrition intolerance in psychiatric patients with comorbid medical conditions: a retrospective cohort study.

Authors

Pei Zhou, Dongyan Zhang, Ping Zhang, Jiajia Shi, Xiaomin Liu, Shujuan Jiao, Beibei Wang, Xia Xue

Published in

Frontiers in psychiatry. Volume 17. Pages 1904251. Epub Oct 05, 2026.

Abstract

Critically ill psychiatric patients frequently present with multiple physical comorbidities and poor nutritional status. Enteral nutrition plays a key role in comprehensive critical care, but enteral nutrition intolerance (ENI) is highly prevalent.
To investigate the incidence, independent risk factors, and clinical outcomes of ENI in critically ill psychiatric patients with comorbid physical diseases.
This is a single-center retrospective study. We enrolled 150 consecutive patients admitted between January 2024 and December 2025 who received enteral nutrition for at least 3 days. Data for analysis were sourced from the institutional electronic medical record database. Baseline characteristics, nutritional indicators, psychiatric parameters, comorbidity scores, and treatment-related variables were collected. To detect independent risk factors for ENI, univariate screening was performed first, followed by multivariate logistic regression.
The overall incidence of ENI was 54.0% in critically ill psychiatric patients with physical comorbidities. Multivariate logistic regression showed the odds ratio (OR) of serum albumin <25 g/L (OR = 3.26, 95%CI: 2.11-5.04, P<0.001), APACHE II score ≥15 (OR = 2.89, 95%CI: 1.87-4.47, P<0.001), combined use of ≥3 antipsychotic agents (OR = 2.71, 95%CI: 1.75-4.19, P<0.001), schizophrenia (OR = 2.12, 95%CI: 1.43-3.21, P = 0.008), and duration of antibiotic use ≥7 days (OR = 2.18, 95%CI: 1.40-3.38, P = 0.001). ENI was significantly associated with longer hospital stay, lower nutritional goal attainment, more frequent EN interruption, and higher pulmonary infection rates.
These findings indicate a high burden of ENI in this vulnerable population. The risk factors include hypoalbuminemia, high APACHE IIscore, combined use of three or more antipsychotic agents, schizophrenia, and prolonged antibiotic therapy.

PMID:
42898492
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 20 Oct 2026.

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