*3.4. Patient Population*

For the initial trial, we screened medical patients upon hospital admission for risk of malnutrition using the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS) 2002 [29]. We included adult patients with a total NRS score ≥ 3 points, an expected length of stay (LOS) > 4 days, and written informed consent. We excluded patients who were treated in the intensive care or surgical units, were unable to have oral intake, or were receiving long-term nutritional support on admission; patients with terminal illnesses, gastric bypass surgery, anorexia nervosa, acute pancreatitis, acute liver failure, cystic fibrosis, stem cell transplantation; and patients previously included in the trial. All patients eligible for this secondary analysis had a documented diagnosis of CHF on hospital admission, which was confirmed and validated by a complete chart review after hospital discharge. In line with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines [29], we stratified CHF patients, according to their ejection fraction, into three groups: (1) reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF; rEF < 40%), (2) mid-range ejection fraction (HFmrEF; mr EF 40–49%), and (3) preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF; pEF ≥ 50%).

Table A3 of Appendix A gives an overview of the main results from the initial report [24].
