PD1011 - MUST UNDERESTIMATES NUTRITIONAL RISK COMPARED TO MNA IN HOSPITALIZED OLDER ADULTS: EVIDENCE FROM A LARGE REAL-WORLD COHORT

PD1011

MUST UNDERESTIMATES NUTRITIONAL RISK COMPARED TO MNA IN HOSPITALIZED OLDER ADULTS: EVIDENCE FROM A LARGE REAL-WORLD COHORT

T. Koren-Hakim^1,*, B. Amrani‬‏¹, S. frishman¹

¹rabin medical center, petah-tikva, Israel

Rationale: This study addresses whether routine screening with MUST adequately identifies nutritional risk compared to MNA in hospitalized older adults. Inaccurate screening may result in missed high-risk patients and suboptimal clinical management.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 6,066 patients aged ≥65 years admitted to internal medicine departments between 2022–2024. Patients with hospitalization ≥48 hours and available MUST and MNA data were included. Agreement between tools was assessed using chi-square test and Cohen’s kappa. Associations with clinical variables were analyzed using chi-square tests.

Results: The cohort included 6,066 patients (mean age 81.6±8.1 years, 53% female)..MNA classified 87.9% of patients as malnourished or at risk, compared to 20.5% identified as high risk by MUST (p<0.001).Agreement between tools was poor, with negative kappa values, indicating lack of agreement beyond chance. Higher nutritional risk according to MNA was significantly associated with impaired functional status (p<0.001).Poor nutritional status according to MNA was also significantly associated with impaired skin integrity (p<0.001).

Conclusion: MUST substantially underestimates nutritional risk compared to MNA in hospitalized older adults. Poor agreement between tools suggests that reliance on screening alone may lead to under-recognition of high-risk patients. Comprehensive nutritional assessment should be considered in routine care.

References: Slee et al., Clin Nutr 2015; Van Dronkelaar et al., Nutrients 2023; Dent et al., J Nutr Health Aging 2019

Disclosure of Interest: None declared