2.1. Study design and setting

This is a pre-planned secondary analysis of the prospective EFFORT trial (Effect of early nutritional support on Frailty, Functional Outcomes, and Recovery of malnourished medical inpatients Trial). EFFORT was a pragmatic, investigator-initiated, open-label, multicentre randomized controlled trial, which recruited patients from April 2014 to February 2018 in 8 Swiss hospitals. The ethical committee of the Northwestern part of Switzerland (EKNZ; 2014_001) approved the study protocol and all patients or their authorized representatives provided written informed consent. The trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/{"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT02517476","term_id":"NCT02517476"}}NCT02517476). The main aim of EFFORT was to assess the effects of early nutritional therapy on patient outcomes in the medical inpatient setting. The rationale for the trial, design details, and eligibility features have been published previously^[15] as have the main results of the trial.^[16]