RELIABILITY OF MINI NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT SCALE IN RURAL SETUP OF A TERTIARY HEALTH CARE HOSPITAL IN CENTRAL INDIA

INTRODUCTION:  Health of an individual is the result of various criteria like healthy nutritional status, excellent functional capacity and favourable environmental conditions. The nutritional status plays a vital role in determining the health seeking behaviour and the limitation of functional capacity. So, this 3 month cross sectional study was aimed at determining the reliability of mini nutritional status scale in the field practice area of rural health training centre of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha, Maharashtra,

METHODS:  in reference to inter-observer reliability using two pre trained nurses, visited the elderly who had utilised the health care services from the rural health training centre in the last one month duration, by house to house visit, and recorded the information as per MNA scale. The follow up visit, after the first visit of ANM, was done exactly after one month and again the data was recorded in the form of MNA scale. The data collected was analysed for inter-observer variations, using kappa statistics. Prior approval was sought from the Institutional ethics committee of JNMC. Oral consent was obtained from the participants.

RESULTS:  Mean score was 19.6 and 20.4, with standard deviation of 2.45 and 3.05 respectively. According to kappa index, test-retest reliability for a stratified total MNA was 0.78, for 18 ordinals, it was nominal items, it was almost perfect, or substantial in 12 items, in 5 items, it was moderate to fair, and in 1 item it was slight.

CONCLUSIONS:   MNA has a good level of reliability and reproducibility, according to it’s internal consistency.