Dent, E.Visvanathan, R.Piantadosi, C.Chapman, I.2013-03-272013-03-272012Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, 2012; 16(9):764-7671279-77071760-4788http://hdl.handle.net/2440/76288<h4>Objectives</h4>The aims of this study were to: (1) determine the prevalence of undernutrition and frailty in hospitalised elderly patients and (2) evaluate the efficacy of both the Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA) screening tool and the MNA short form (MNA-SF) in identifying frailty.<h4>Setting and participants</h4>A convenient sample of 100 consecutive patients (75.0 % female) admitted to the Geriatric Evaluation and Management Unit (GEMU) at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South Australia.<h4>Measurements</h4>Frailty status was determined using Fried's frailty criteria and nutritional status by the MNA and MNA-SF. Optimal cut-off scores to predict frailty were determined by Youden's Index, Receiver Operator Curves (ROC) and area under curve (AUC).<h4>Results</h4>Undernutrition was common. Using the MNA, 40.0% of patients were malnourished and 44.0% were at risk of malnutrition. By Fried's classification, 66.0 % were frail, 30.0 % were pre-frail and 4.0 % robust. The MNA had a specificity of 0.912 and a sensitivity of 0.516 in predicting frailty using the recommended cut-off for malnourishment (< 17). The optimal MNA cut-off for frailty screening was <17.5 with a specificity of 0.912 and sensitivity of 0.591. The MNA-SF predicted frailty with specificity and sensitivity values of 0.794 and 0.636 respectively, using the standard cut-off of < 8. The optimal MNA-SF cut-off score for frailty was < 9, with specificity and sensitivity values of 0.765 and 0.803 respectively and was better than the optimum MNA cut-off in predicting frailty (Youden Index 0.568 vs. 0.503).<h4>Conclusion</h4>The quickly and easily administered MNA-SF appears to be a good tool for predicting both under-nutrition and frailty in elderly hospitalised people. Further studies would show whether the MNA-SF could also detect frailty in other populations of older people.enCopyright status unknownAgedfrail elderlyundernutritionscreeningpredictive value of testsJournal article002012350710.1007/s12603-012-0405-50003115499000062-s2.0-8487229398522284Dent, E. [0000-0002-4006-3992]Visvanathan, R. [0000-0002-1303-9479]