Nutrition Screening in Primary Care for Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Who Is Missed and Why
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22281768Keywords:
Nutrition screening, Primary care, Community-dwelling older adults, MNA-SF, GLIM criteriaAbstract
Reported prevalence of malnutrition among community-dwelling older adults ranges from 0 to 83 per cent, a spread the reviewing
authors read as evidence of inconsistent or unreliable screening rather than of genuine variation. The instrument most often
recommended for this population illustrates the problem. Validated at 98 per cent sensitivity and 94 per cent specificity, the
six-item screener achieved 59.2 per cent sensitivity and 78.8 per cent specificity when tested against diagnostic criteria in 273
community-dwelling adults aged 60 and over, agreeing with those criteria in 22.3 per cent of the population; malnutrition was
diagnosed in 37.7 per cent by the criteria and in 7.3 per cent by the screener. The tool is meanwhile described as rarely used in
primary care, where screening takes place mainly through weight monitoring.
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