Determining the feasibility of nutritional screening tests in hemodialysis patients

Based on the Malnutrition Inflammation Score (MIS), this study was designed to determine which of the nutritional screening tests could better detect the risk of malnutrition in hemodialysis patients. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted between the dates of June 2017 and August 2017 at two private hemodialysis centers (Izmir Karşıyaka Dialysis Center, Aydın Söke Dialysis Center). This study was conducted with 204 hemodialysis patients, being 41.7% female and 58.3% male patient, 18 years of aged over. For data collection; patient information form for hemodialysis patients, anthropometric measurements (height, pre and post dialysis body weight, triceps skin fold thickness, upper middle arm circumference, calf circumference), Malnutrition Inflammation Score (MIS), Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI), Subjective Global Assessment Scale (SGA), Mini Nutritional Assessment Scale (MNA) were used. Percentile, mean, standard deviation, Independent Samples t test, ANOVA, Tukey and Tamhane test statistics, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H test, Bonferroni correction, Spearman correlation coefficient were used in the analysis of the data. The level of significance was accepted as p<0.05. In this study, malnutrition detection rates in hemodialysis patients were found by MIS, GNRI, SGA and MNA, respectively; 70.1%, 14.2%, 36.7%, 57.4%. According to the MIS, 34 patients were severely malnourished and of them 41.2% were female and 58.8% were males. To the 34 patients identified as severe malnourished by MIS, the rates of detection of GNRI, SGA, and MNA; 17.6%, 14.7% and 29.4%, respectively. These rates are very low compared to MIS. Consequently; it has been determined that nutritional screening tests (GNRI, SGA, MNA) which are used in this study are not applicable for hemodialysis patients. Keywords: Hemodialysis; malnutrition inflammation score; geriatric nutritional risk index; subjective global assessment; mini nutritional assessment.