BackgroundMalnutrition is prevalent among critically ill patients and has been associated with a poor prognosis. This study sought to determine whether the addition of a nutritional indicator to the various variables of prognostic scoring models can improve the prediction of mortality among trauma patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).MethodsThis study's cohort included 1,126 trauma patients hospitalized in the ICU between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2021. Two nutritional indicators, the prognostic nutrition index (PNI), a calculation based on the serum albumin concentration and peripheral blood lymphocyte count, and the geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI), a calculation based on the serum albumin concentration and the ratio of current body weight to ideal body weight, were examined for their association with the mortality outcome. The significant nutritional indicator was served as an additional variable in prognostic scoring models of the Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS), the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE II), and the mortality prediction models (MPM II) at admission, 24, 48, and 72 h in the mortality outcome prediction. The predictive performance was determined by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.ResultsMultivariate logistic regression revealed that GNRI (OR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.96–0.99;p=0.007), but not PNI (OR, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.97–1.02;p=0.518), was independent risk factor for mortality. However, none of these predictive scoring models showed a significant improvement in prediction when the GNRI variable is incorporated.ConclusionsThe addition of GNRI as a variable to the prognostic scoring models did not significantly enhance the performance of the predictors.