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Updated: May 1, 2026
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Validation of the modified mini nutritional assessment short-forms in different populations of older people in Poland
J Kostka1, E Borowiak, T Kostka
1T. Kostka, Department of Geriatrics, Medical University, Pl. Hallera 1, 90-647 Lodz, Poland. TomaszKostka@wp.pl.
Objective:
To assess the usefulness in different populations of elderly people in Poland of both modified versions of Mini Nutritional Assessment Short-Forms (MNA-SFs) with a three-category scoring classification: one using BMI (MNA-SF-BMI) and another using calf circumference (MNA-SF-CC).
Setting And Participants:
A group of 932 community-dwelling subjects from the urban environment, 812 subjects from the rural environment and 859 subjects from an institutional environment (nursing homes).
Measurements:
Agreement between both MNA-SFs and the MNA full form.
Results:
MNA-SF-BMI correctly classified 84.12%, 82.51% and 81.84% of subjects from urban, rural and institutional environment, respectively. For MNA-SF-CC those values were 82.4%, 71.8% and 76.6%, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of MNA-SF-BMI and MNA-SF-CC against full MNA in screening for "at risk/malnutrition" and "malnutrition" were generally very high, except for relatively lower sensitivity (74.1%) when screening for "malnutrition" with MNA-SF-CC in nursing homes.
Conclusion:
Both MNA-SFs can be recommended as screening tools in assessing the nutritional state of the community-dwelling and institutionalised elderly in Poland. The full version of the MNA confirmed the results of MNA-SFs in this group. The "classic" MNA-SF using BMI was found to perform better than the MNA-SF-CC. The MNA-SF-CC should be used only when measuring BMI is not possible. While using MNA-SF-CC in nursing homes, a higher MNA-SF-CC cut-point of eleven should be rather used in this population to screen for "at risk/malnutrition".
