Evaluation of the nutritional status of older hospitalised geriatric patients: a comparative analysis of a Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) version and the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS 2002)

Background The present study aimed to evaluate a short‐form ( MNA ‐ SF ) version of the Mini Nutritional Assessment ( MNA ), in which some of the items were operationalised, based on scores from tools used for a comprehensive geriatric assessment, as a method for analysing the nutritional status of hospitalised geriatric patients. We compared this MNA ‐ SF version with the corresponding MNA long‐form ( MNA ‐ LF ) and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 ( NRS 2002) in terms of completion rate, prevalence and agreement regarding malnutrition and/or the risk of this. Methods In total, 201 patients aged ≥65 years who were hospitalised in geriatric wards were included in this analysis. Results The MNA ‐ SF , MNA ‐ LF and NRS 2002 were completed in 98.0%, 95.5% and 99.5% of patients ( P  =   0.06), respectively. The MNA ‐ SF , MNA ‐ LF and NRS 2002 categorised 93.4%, 91.1% and 66.0% of patients as being malnourished or at risk of being malnourished ( P  <   0.001). Agreement between the MNA ‐ SF and MNA ‐ LF was substantial (κ = 0.70, P  <   0.001). No agreement between the MNA ‐ SF and NRS 2002 was found (κ = −0.12, P  <   0.001). Interestingly, NRS 2002 part 1 (prescreening) revealed a false negative rate of 21.0% (only in patients aged ≥70 years who showed moderate disease severity) in relation to the NRS 2002 part 2. Conclusions The MNA ‐ SF version emerged as a useful tool for evaluating the nutritional status of hospitalised geriatric patients. The NRS 2002 part 1 showed limited value as a prescreening aid in relation to the NRS 2002 part 2 in the same group of patients.