Usefulness of Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire (SNAQ) in Appetite Assessment in Elder Patients with Liver Cirrhosis.

BACKGROUND: Appetite has received little attention in health care and researches in liver cirrhosis. The Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire (SNAQ), a self-assessment nutritional screening tool, could be used to screen the risk of malnutrition and weight loss. Our objective was to assess the usefulness of SNAQ in appetite assessment in patients with liver cirrhosis.

METHODS: Seventy patients were enrolled. Appetite assessment was applied in the enrolled patients by completing SNAQ. Weight, hemoglobin, albumin, pro-albumin and Child-Pugh class were evaluated and recorded. The correlation between SNAQ score and these indexes was also evaluated. The most discriminating SNAQ value was calculated, which separated the participant at risk of weight loss.

RESULTS: In participants with SNAQ < 14, the BMI, hemoglobin, albumin and pro-albumin were significantly less than those in participants with SNAQ ≥ 14. The correlation between SNAQ and these indexes were also observed (hemoglobin: r = 0.334, p = 0.005; albumin: r = 0.384, p = 0.001; pro-albumin: r = 0.342, p = 0.004; BMI: r = 0.550, p = 0.000). The SNAQ scores reduced along with the increase of Child-Pugh class. An SNAQ score under 11.5 was the best clinical indicator of elder people at risk of weight loss.

CONCLUSIONS: SNAQ can be used to evaluate the appetite loss and predicting the weight loss in patients with liver cirrhosis. The SNAQ tool also can be used by clinicians and nurses to identify patients with a poor appetite who are at risk of weight loss.