Evaluating the DETERMINE Your Nutritional Health Checklist and the Mini Nutritional Assessment as tools to identify nutritional problems in elderly Europeans.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate two short questionnaires for assessing the nutritional situation of elderly people, the DETERMINE Your Nutritional Health Checklist of the Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI checklist) and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), by comparing equivalent cumulative scores with data on dietary intake, anthropometrics and blood biochemistries.


METHODS
Information similar to the questions of the NSI and MNA lists was collected by SENECA: the Survey in Europe on Nutrition and the Elderly, a Concerted Action.


METHODS
Records collected in 1993, could be used from 1161 European elderly men and women born between 1913 and 1918, mostly community dwelling, whose diet, lifestyle and health were studied twice, in 1989 and 1993.


RESULTS
The MNA classified 55% of the examinees as well-nourished, 44% as at risk of malnutrition and 1% as malnourished. The NSI categorised the elderly people differently: 11% as good, 41% at moderate nutritional risk, 48% at high nutritional risk. Biochemical, dietary and anthropometric indices did not differ either between NSI categories or between MNA categories. Using serum albumin values (< 30 g/l) and lymphocyte counts (< 1500/ml) as standards, specificity and sensitivity of both instruments for identifying at-risk groups were below 0.6. Only with body weight loss (> or = 10%) as criterion variable were higher sensitivities (0.75 (NSI), 0.96 (MNA)) and specificities (0.54 (NSI), 0.60 (MNA)) found.


CONCLUSIONS
It is concluded that in an apparently healthy elderly population both assessment tools are of limited value.
de Groot
L C
LC
Department of Human Nutrition, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.
Beck
A M
AM
Schroll
M
M
van Staveren
W A
WA
D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012709:Serum Albumin / Q000032:analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D012709:Serum Albumin