Validity of the Graz Malnutrition Screening as an indicator of malnutrition in hospitalized patients

Hospital malnutrition is an important health problem for developed and developing countries, and screening tools are recommended in practice because they can be obtained quickly and easily to identify the risk of malnutrition. This study aimed to validate the use of the Graz Malnutrition Screening (GMS) in combination with different methods of nutrition assessment in the identification of malnutrition risk in hospitalized adult and older patients.The study was performed with a total of 348 adult (64.4%) and older (35.6%) patients treated in the internal and surgical clinical units of Ankara Gazi Hospital between May and July 2019. A questionnaire including general information, anthropometric measurements, and biochemical parameters was applied. The Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002), Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (SNAQ), and GMS were applied, and results were evaluated by comparison.The mean age of the patients was 57.0 years, and the mean hospital length of stay (LOS) was 7.9 days. According to GMS, malnutrition risk was found in 47.7% of the patients. When NRS-2002 was taken as a reference, the sensitivity and specificity of GMS were calculated as 95.16% and 78.57%, respectively, and Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.686. When SNAQ was taken as a reference, the sensitivity and specificity of GMS were calculated as 91.59% and 75.11%, respectively, and Cohen's kappa coefficient was 0.609.GMS can be used as a valid screening tool to identify malnutrition risk in both adult and older patients in the different hospital departments in Turkey.