Validación del cuestionario nutricional MUST en población anciana en la Comunidad Autónoma de Cantabria y su relación con la prevalencia de úlceras por presión

Abstract

Spain is currently becoming an “aged” country. Nutrition plays a key role in our organism and is strongly linked to the development of pressure ulcers (PU). An accurate assessment of the nutritional state are necessary. In Spain there is only one detecting malnutrition tool validates: the MNA test (Mini Nutritional Assessment) and its short form the MNA-SF test. Therefore, our aim is to validate the MUST test (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool) in order to increase the changes of detecting malnutrition and its link to the prevalence of pressure ulcers. This is a diagnostic precision study in which 430 patients over 65 years old were evaluated during the first 24 hours of hospital admission at the Internal Medicine Unit of the University Hospital Marqués de Valdecilla. Diagnostic validity rates were good (sensitivity 100%, specificity 76.5%, positive predictive value 80.1% and negative predictive value 100%) and there being a relationship between the risk of malnutrition and the presence of PU (3.302 times more likely to suffer a PU from each point obtained in the MUST), so the MUST is a good screening.