Comparison of Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition, version II and Mini Nutritional Assessment - Short Form in detecting nutritional risk among community-dwelling seniors in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Objective: The aim of the current study is to compare Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition, version II (SCREEN II) and Mini Nutritional Assessment - Short Form (MNA-SF), where each is used to identify nutritional risk prevalence among community-dwelling people aged 65 years and above in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Design: A cross-sectional study. Nutritional risk assessed using the nutritionist's risk rating, anthropometric measurements, functional indicators, cognitive parameters, SCREEN II and MNA-SF. Setting: The municipalities of Foca, East Sarajevo and Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Participants: Eight hundred twenty-one community-dwelling individuals aged >= 65 years. Results: The prevalence of high nutritional risk per nutritionist's risk rating, SCREEN II and MNA-SF was 26, 60, and 7 %, respectively. With the nutritionist's rating score >= 5 as the criterion, the MNA-SF cut-off point of <= 11 (indicating any possible risk) had poor sensitivity (55 center dot 7 %), specificity (46 center dot 6 %) and AUC (0 center dot 563; P = 0 center dot 024). When the criterion of >7 was applied, good sensitivity (95 center dot 3 %) and specificity (88 center dot 9 %) were obtained for the MNA-SF cut-off score of <= 7. AUC for this comparison was 0 center dot 742 (considered fair). Cut-off points of <54 (AUC = 0 center dot 816) and <50 (AUC = 0 center dot 881) for SCREEN II (indicating moderate to high risk) corresponded with good sensitivity (82 center dot 2 %; 80 center dot 9 %) and fair specificity (72 center dot 1 %; 75 center dot 0 %). Conclusion: MNA-SF may have a limited role in nutritional risk screening among community-dwelling seniors in Bosnia and Herzegovina. SCREEN II has promising results in regard to validity, but further studies are warranted.

Automated summary

This study aimed to compare the prevalence of nutritional risk identified by SCREEN II and MNA-SF among community-dwelling seniors in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results suggest that MNA-SF may have a limited role in nutritional risk screening, while SCREEN II shows promising results in terms of validity. Further studies are needed to validate these findings.