Mini Nutritional Assessment Scale-Short Form can be useful for frailty screening in older adults

• Published in: Clinical interventions in aging 2019-01, Vol.14, p.693-699
• Main Authors: Soysal, Pinar, Veronese, Nicola, Arik, Ferhat, Kalan, Ugur, Smith, Lee, Isik, Ahmet Turan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aging; Cognitive ability; Dementia; Elderly patients; Fatigue - epidemiology; Female; Frail Elderly; Frailty; Frailty - diagnosis; frailty status; Geriatric Assessment - methods; Geriatrics; Hospitals; Humans; Male; Malnutrition; Malnutrition - diagnosis; Malnutrition - epidemiology; Mass Screening - methods; Medical research; Medicine; mini nutritional assessment-short form; Nutrition Assessment; Nutritional assessment; Nutritional status; older adults; Older people; Original Research; Outpatients; Proteins; screening; Sensitivity and Specificity; Systematic review; Weight Loss
• ISSN: 1178-1998; 1176-9092; 1178-1998
• DOI: 10.2147/CIA.S196770

Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF) is used to assess nutritional status in older adults, but it is not known whether it can be used to define frailty. This study was aimed to investigate whether or not MNA-SF can identify frailty status as defined by Fried's criteria. A total of 1,003 outpatients (aged 65 years or older) were included in the study. All patients underwent comprehensive geriatric assessment. Frailty status was evaluated by Fried's criteria: unintentional weight loss, exhaustion, low levels of activity, weakness, and slowness. One point is assigned for each criterion, and frailty status is identified based on the number of points scored: 0 points, not frail; 1-2 points, pre-frail; ≥3 points, frail. A total score of MNA-SF 11 indicates malnutrition, risk of malnutrition, and no malnutrition, respectively. Of the 1,003 outpatients (mean age 74.2±8.5 years), 313 participants (31.2%) were considered frail and 382 (38.1%) pre-frail. Among frail and pre-frail patients, 49.2% and 25.1% were at risk of malnutrition and 22.0% and 1.6% were malnourished, respectively. MNA-SF with a cut-off point of 11.0 had a sensitivity of 71.2% and a specificity of 92.8% for the detection of frail participants, and with a cut-off point of 13 had a sensitivity of 45.7% and a specificity of 78.3% for the detection of pre-frailty. The area under the curve for MNA-SF was estimated to be 0.906 and 0.687 for frailty and pre-frailty, respectively. MNA-SF can be useful for frailty screening in older adults.