[Association between Mini Nutritional Assessment and the Fried frailty index in older people living in the community]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and the Fried frailty index in older people living in the community.

MATERIAL AND METHOD: Cross-sectional study of individuals aged 75 and over living in the community.

VARIABLES: nutritional status measured by Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF) and MNA, and frailty measured by Fried's frailty criteria.

RESULTS: The sample consisted of 640 individuals with a mean age of 81.3±5.0 years; 39.7% were men. According to the MNA-SF, 76.9% of patients were well nourished, 19.8% were at risk of malnutrition and 1.9% were malnourished, while percentages were 78.1, 19.6 and 2.3%, respectively, according to the MNA. According to Fried criteria, 43.4% were not frail, 47% were pre-frail and 9.6% were frail. The largest proportion of frail subjects were at risk of malnutrition. The higher the score of MNA components, the higher was the frailty index. Likewise, there was a significant association between the 5 frailty criteria and the categories of MNA and MNA-SF. The area under the ROC curve for the MNA-SF was 0.75 while for the MNA it was 0.80.

CONCLUSIONS: The results presented show a clear association between Mini Nutritional Assessment and Fried's criteria. They also suggest that the "nutritional risk" MNA category is the one most strongly associated with the Fried's frailty index.