Long-form but not short-form Mini-Nutritional Assessment is appropriate for grading nutritional risk of patients on hemodialysis—A cross-sectional study

• Published in: International journal of nursing studies 2011-11, Vol.48 (11), p.1429-1435
• Main Authors: Tsai, Alan C., Chang, Mei-Zu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dialysis; Female; Hemodialysis; Humans; Male; Malnutrition; Medical screening; Middle Aged; Mini Nutritional Assessment; Nursing; Nutrition; Nutrition Assessment; Nutritional risk screening; Protein-energy malnutrition; Proteins; Renal Dialysis; Risk Assessment; Sampling; Serum; Subjective Global Assessment; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0020-7489; 1873-491X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.05.004

Routine screening/assessment of protein-energy status is essential for preventing uremic malnutrition in patients on hemodialysis (HD). A simple, low cost, reliable and non-invasive tool is greatly desired. This study aimed to evaluate the appropriateness of using the long-form (LF) and the short-form (SF) Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) for grading the risk of protein-energy malnutrition in patients on HD. A cross-sectional study with purposive sampling. A hospital-managed hemodialysis center. 152 adult ambulatory patients on hemodialysis. The nutritional status of each patient was graded with MNA-LF and MNA-SF, each in two versions—a normalized-original (content-equivalent) version (by adopting population-specific anthropometric cut-off points) and an alternative version that replaced calf circumference for BMI in the scale. The SGA, serum albumin and serum creatinine served as references. Cross-tabulation test was used to evaluate the consistency of the versions. MNA-SF versions rated fewer HD subjects malnourished or at risk of malnutrition (32.2% and 24.3% for T1 and T2, respectively) compared to MNA-LF versions (40.8% and 36.2%) or the SGA (47.4%). MNA-SF versions (kappa = 0.450 and 0.446) also did not perform as well as MNA-LF versions (kappa = 0.734 and 0.666) in predicting the risk of malnutrition in HD patients using the SGA as the reference. MNA-SF also did not perform as well as the MNA-LF using serum albumin or serum creatinine as the reference. The MNA-LF is appropriate for predicting protein-energy malnutrition in HD patients but MNA-SF may under-rate these patients. Effort should be made to improve the MNA-SF for HD patients since the short-form is more time-efficient and thus, greatly desired in clinical practice.