Abstract
Introduction: Our primary objective was to evaluate the psychometric properties of Mini nutritional screening assessment (MINI-MNA) among our community-dwelling older adults. Our secondary objective was to put together a micro-version with superior psychometric properties and empirical probable cut-point value for screening malnutrition risk.
Methods: We recruited elderly (60+years) subjects (10 subjects/questionnaire-item) from various sampling units in the general urban population of Gorgan district, Golestan. The questionnaire was translated and back-translated to, in turn, determine various psychometric properties. We also did exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Data analyses were conducted using AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structure) and SPSS Statistics version 25 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY).
Results: A total of 242 subjects ((54.1% men; sample mean age 70.5 (95%CI 69.5-71.5) years) successfully participated. For MINI-MNA, the alpha coefficient was 0.75 and the average item-test correlation was 0.67. Its group alpha coefficient for responding a yes or no to its item(s) was 0.78 and 0.82, respectively. Its fit index was 0.95. For our micro-questionnaire, the alpha coefficient was 0.81 and average item-test correlation was 0.81. Its fit index was 0.97. It’s probable age-adjusted cut-point for distinguishing the risk of malnutrition was a score six with a sensitivity of 92.3%, specificity of 94.8% and a Youden index of 0.87.
Conclusion: Our questionnaire displayed far better psychometric properties as compared to MINI-MNA. We acknowledge that this questionnaire is not intended to be a replacement of existing questionnaires, a brief, optimized alternative helps address barriers like limited visit time, patient/provider burden, and lower sensitivity/specificity found for some tools in prior research but rather expands on the ways to screen the risk of malnutrition among community-based older adults.