Comparative analysis of questionnaires exploring nutritional status and risk of malnutrition in the elderly living in residential care
Journal Title: New Medicine - Year 2012, Vol 16, Issue 3
Abstract
<b>Aim</b>. Our aim was to compare different validated questionnaires that measure nutritional status and risk of malnutrition in the institutionalized elderly, matching these with data of the body mass index (BMI) and to evaluate comparatively the usefulness of these measurement methods.<br><b>Material and methods</b>. 104 elderly volunteers (N = 104, aged 50-94, median age: 78.3) living in social institutions were investigated for risk of malnutrition comparing five different questionnaires – SNAQ, NSI, MNA, MUST, SCREEN II. Data processing was performed using Microsoft Excel version 2003 and SPSS Statistics version 17.0.<br><b>Results</b>. SNAQ, MUST and especially MNA showed a significant correlation with BMI, so these questionnaires can be primarily recommended for measuring elderly malnutrition. Two of them, MUST and SNAQ, filtered nearly the same subgroup of “no risk of malnutrition” cases. On the other hand, the use of NSI and SCREEN II can be queried because their results did not correlate well with BMI and they identified more cases to be threatened by malnutrition than the other questionnaires listed above.<br><b>Conclusions</b>. Concordance of the results by using SNAQ, MUST and MNA indicate that they are the best methods to estimate nutritional status and risk of malnutrition in the elderly. However, MNA is a more complex survey with more questions and therefore it requires more time to be filled out.<br>On the other hand, NSI and SCREEN II seem to be less appropriate for measuring the risk of malnutrition at least in the Hungarian institutionalized elderly.
Authors and Affiliations
Enikő Turóczi, Márta Bálint, Róbertné Csajbók, Adrienn Lichthammer, István Szabolcs
Keywords
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