Assessment of Food Intake Assisted by Photography in Older People Living in a Nursing Home: Maintenance over Time and Performance for Diagnosis of Malnutrition

Malnutrition is related to poor outcomes. Food intake semi-quantitative assessment is helpful for malnutrition screening. Aims: to assess maintenance over one month of one-day semi-quantitative assessment of food intake (primary aim) and its performance in diagnosing malnutrition (secondary aim) in older people living in a nursing home. Food portions consumed at lunch and dinner were measured during 20 days by the Simple Evaluation of Food Intake (SEFI) assisted by photography (SEFI -AP) in 70 residents. Nutritional status was assessed in each patient during the first week of food intake monitoring according to Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition criteria. Food intake was decreased, i.e., SEFI -AP < 7, in 39% (n = 27/73) of patients. According to the methods, 36 to 48% (n = 25 to 33/73) of patients had malnutrition, and 6 to 37% (n = 4 to 25/73) sarcopenia. According to a generalized linear model on ranks with repeated measures, the SEFI -AP medians of lunch ( = 0.11) and means of lunch and dinner ( = 0.15) did not vary over time. Day 3 SEFI -AP anticipated decreased food intake from days 4 to 20, with a sensitivity of 78% (95% confidence interval (CI), 62-94), a specificity of 30% [95%CI, 17-44] and positive and negative predictive values of 41% [95%CI, 28-55] and 68% [95%CI, 48-89]. The performance of SEFI -AP for diagnosis of malnutrition using calf circumference