A prospective observational study. The adequacy of exclusive oral consumption will be assessed in a consecutive sample of critically ill patients after ventilator removal by visual intake scale in 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of principal meals, i.e., lunch and dinner, during seven days after recruitment.~To characterize the study population, general characteristics of patients and their hospital outcomes will be collected: sociodemographic (age, sex, ethnicity, education) and admission clinical data (weight, height, Simplified Acute Physiology Score 3, Nutritional Risk Screening, and Subjective Global Assessment), energy and protein intake within 72 hours after initiation of invasive mechanical ventilation, the underlying disease that led to hospitalization, length of stay in the ICU, length of invasive mechanical ventilation and hospital stay, the incidence of infections after ICU discharge and in-hospital death.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the adequacy of exclusive oral intake, in terms of energy-protein amount, after extubation in critically ill patients who remained on invasive mechanical ventilation for at least 48 hours.