Poulia KA, Yannakoulia M, Karageorgou D, Gamaletsou M, Panagiotakos DB, Sipsas NV, Zampelas A, et al.
Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland). Date of publication 2012 Jun 1;volume 31(3):378-85.
1. Clin Nutr. 2012 Jun;31(3):378-85. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2011.11.017. Epub 2011 Dec
17.
Evaluation of the efficacy of six nutritional screening tools to predict
malnutrition in the elderly.
Poulia KA(1), Yannakoulia M, Karageorgou D, Gamaletsou M, Panagiotakos DB, Sipsas
NV, Zampelas A.
Author information:
(1)Department of Nutrition, Laikon General Hospital, Athens, Greece.
BACKGROUND & AIMS: Malnutrition in the elderly is a multifactorial problem, more
prevalent in hospitals and care homes. The absence of a gold standard in
evaluating nutritional risk led us to evaluate the efficacy of six nutritional
screening tools used in the elderly.
METHODS: Two hundred forty eight elderly patients (129 men, 119 female women,
aged 75.2 ± 8.5 years) were examined. Nutritional screening was performed on
admission using the following tools: Nutritional Risk Index (NRI), Geriatric
Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI), Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), Mini
Nutritional Assessment - Screening Form (MNA-SF), Malnutrition Universal
Screening Tool (MUST) and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002). A combined
index for malnutrition was also calculated.
RESULTS: Nutritional risk and/or malnutrition varied greatly, ranging from 47.2
to 97.6%, depending on the nutritional screening tool used. MUST was the most
valid screening tool (validity coefficient = 0.766, CI 95%: 0.690-0.841), while
SGA was in better agreement with the combined index (κ = 0.707, p = 0.000). NRS
2002 although was the highest in sensitivity (99.4%), it was the lowest in
specificity (6.1%) and positive predictive value (68.2%).
CONCLUSIONS: MUST seem to be the most valid in the evaluation of the risk for
malnutrition in the elderly upon admission to the hospital. NRS 2002 was found to
overestimate nutritional risk in the elderly.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and
Metabolism. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.clnu.2011.11.017
PMID: 22182948 [Indexed for MEDLINE]
