Abstract:
Body weight is an important clinical parameter for accurate dosing of drugs with a narrow
therapeutic window, However, it is difficult to measure the body weight of a patient if they
cannot stand on a scale. There are several anthropometrics-based equations to estimate
the body weight, but most of these are derived from white Caucasian populations and are
not validated for South Asians. This study aimed to validate existing anthropometrics-based
weight estimation equations and develop a new equation for the same purpose for Sri Lankan
adults. This prospective study was conducted at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka over
a 6-month period, split into a development and a validation phase. During the development
phase, estimated body weight of patients by doctors and nurses and patients themselves
were noted and compared against their actual body weight. In addition, 13 anthropometric
measurements were taken, which were used to validate 12 anthropometrics-based equations
to estimate body weight described in literature previously. Two new gender specific
regression models to estimate the body weight in the local population was also derived and
validated. A total of 502 (males = 249) and 217 (males = 108) patients were recruited for the
development and validation phases respectively. Both doctors and patients had comparable
accuracy in predicting body weight (p>0.05). All anthropometric based equations were significantly
correlated with actual body weight (correlation coefficients: 0.741–0.869), and the
new equations derived from the local data performed similarly to the best performing equation
identified from the literature during validation phase. However, even the best of these
equations could not outperform patient/physician estimates. When the patient weight cannot
be measured, an estimate by the patient or the doctor may be the best substitute
Citation:
Herath, H. M. M. T. B., Wijayawardhana, K. W. S. M., Wickramarachchi, U. I., Senanayake, S., Senanayake, B., & Rodrigo, C. (2023). Estimation of body weight using anthropometric parameters in Sri Lankan hospitalized adult patients. PLOS ONE, 18(9), e0290895. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290895