Norwegian version of the Nutritional Form for the Elderly: sufficient psychometric properties for performing institutional screening of elderly patients

Artikkelen rapporterer en studie hvor hensikten var å teste den norske versjonen av ernæringskartleggingsinstrumentet Nutritional Form for the Elderly (NUFFE-NO) blant eldre pasienter i en institusjonssetting.The objective of this study was to test if the Norwegian version of the nutritional screening instrument entitled Nutritional Form for the Elderly (NUFFE-NO) demonstrates sufficient evidence of reliability and validity, including sensitivity and specificity, when applied to a select group of elderly hospital patients. The hypothesis was that NUFFE-NO has sufficient psychometric properties to be used as a screening instrument. The model used for the testing procedure was designed to test reliability (homogeneity and stability) and validity (criterion-related, concurrent validity, and construct validity) including sensitivity and specificity in a cross-sectional study. One-hundred fifty-eight patients were interviewed using the nutritional screening instruments NUFFE-NO and Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). They were interviewed once again (using NUFFE-NO) 2 to 4 days afterward. Background variables were collected. Data from the patients' records were collected regarding the nutritional screening instrument Nutrition Risk Screening 2002. Anthropometric measurements were performed. A Cronbach α coefficient of .77 was obtained. A majority of the items showed good or very good agreement in a test-retest. A high correlation coefficient (as a measurement of concurrent validity) was estimated between NUFFE-NO and MNA. The NUFFE-NO could separate groups with expected high and low scores, which supported construct validity. Calculated sensitivity and specificity values for NUFFE-NO, with MNA as a criterion and receiver operating characteristic curves with areas 0.79 and 0.80, showed appropriate cutoff points for measuring low, medium, and high risk for undernutrition. In conclusion, NUFFE-NO was shown to have sufficient psychometric properties for performing an institutional screening of elderly hospital patients