Correlation Between Mini Nutritional Assessment and Anthropometric Measurements Among Community-Dwelling Elderly Individuals in Rural Southern Thailand

Abstract

Purpose

The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) can be applied to assess nutrition status among community-dwelling elderly individuals by health care professionals. This study aimed to evaluate the correlation of MNA score and anthropometric measurements, gait speed, and handgrip strength among elderly community members. The secondary outcome was to compare the performance of the MNA-SF with the full MNA.

Materials and Methods

The study was a cross-sectional study with 176 elderly individuals aged ≥60 years living in rural southern Thailand. The MNA-SF and full MNA scores were obtained by using the standard form in the Thai version of the MNA. We collected anthropometric measurements, gait speed, handgrip strength, and MNA data.

Results

There was a significant positive correlation between body weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist-to-height ratio, waist-to-hip ratio, mid-upper arm circumference, calf circumference, triceps skinfold thickness, handgrip strength and full MNA total score using the partial correlation coefficient after controlling for age and sex. The MNA-SF had sensitivity of 78.79%, specificity of 81.82%, PPV of 50%, NPV of 94.35%, LR+ of 4.33, LR- of 0.26, accuracy of 81.25% and AUC 0.901 when using the full MNA as a reference standard.

Conclusion

The MNA correlated with many anthropometric measurements. The MNA-SF had a high specificity, NPV and accuracy of more than 80% when compared with the full MNA.

Keywords:

• mini nutritional assessment
• malnutrition
• elderly
• community
• anthropometric measurement

Ethical Approval

The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee on Human Rights Related to Research Involving Human Subjects, Walailak University, prior to the recruitment of participants (WUEC-20-112-01).

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge all volunteers in this research. The authors also thank the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and the Director of Walailak University Hospital for their support throughout the course of this study. Special thanks are also given to Pakpanang Municipality for assistance and Ms. Saymai Thongsuk, the head of public health volunteers, for coordination with the Pakpanang community.

Disclosure

The authors reported no conflicts of interest for this work and declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was part of a project funded by Thai Health Promotion Foundation, grant number 62-00-1502. The APC was partially supported by Walailak University and Thai Health Promotion Foundation.