P700 - FEASIBILITY OF THE GERMAN VERSION OF THE MALNUTRITION AWARENESS SCALE (MAS) QUESTIONNAIRE FOR OLDER ADULTS

P700

FEASIBILITY OF THE GERMAN VERSION OF THE MALNUTRITION AWARENESS SCALE (MAS) QUESTIONNAIRE FOR OLDER ADULTS

M. Volpp¹, D. Eglseer², D. Volkert¹, H. Jager-Wittenaar^3,4,5, M. Sealy³, E. Leistra⁶, M. Visser⁶, L. Weber^1,*

¹Institute for Biomedicine of Aging, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany, ²Institute of Nursing Science, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria, ³Research Group Healthy Ageing, Allied Health Care and Nursing, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, Groningen, ⁴Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Dietetics, Radboud university medical center, Nijmegen, Netherlands, ⁵Department of Physiotherapy, Human Physiology and Anatomy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, ⁶Department of Health Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Rationale: The recently developed Malnutrition Awareness Scale (MAS) for community-dwelling older adults was translated from English into German, culturally adapted and back-translated. Following a “Thinking Aloud Study” with 13 participants and minor modifications of the questionnaire, feasibility of this adapted MAS version was evaluated in Graz/Austria (AT) and Nuremberg/Germany (GE).

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 51 Austrian and 47 German community-dwelling persons aged 60 years or older, rated comprehensibility of 35 statements/questions and difficulty of 23 items of the MAS with a 4-point Likert scale. For each item the proportion of persons who rated the respective item as (very) understandable or (very) easy was calculated, resulting in an item comprehensibility index (I-CI) and item difficulty index (I-DI) for each item/statement/question (>0.78 excellent). Scale indices S-CI and S-DI were calculated as means of the respective single item indices (≥0.8 acceptable, ≥0.9 excellent).

Results: Participants from Austria were 76 ± 9 years old, 61% were female and 8%/37% had a low/high educational level. In Germany, participants were 74 ± 8 years old, 60% were female and 11%/47% had a low/high educational level. I-CI ranged from 0.86 to 1.00 (AT) and from 0.91 to 1.00 (GE), I-DI from 0.84 to 1.00 (AT) and from 0.77 to 1.00 (GE). S-CI was 0.95 (AT) and 0.98 (GE) indicating excellent comprehensibility in both regions, S-DI was 0.94 (AT) and 0.92 (GE) indicating no difficulty to complete the questionnaire in both regions.

Conclusion: The German version of the MAS seems to be a clear and easy-to-use tool to assess malnutrition awareness in German speaking older adults. Next, experts’ view of the relevance of the MAS items will provide information about content validity.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared