RETRACTED: Validation of Nutritional Assessment Tool for Ethiopian Old Age People

Introduction: The nutritional status of old age people is frequently overlooked in many lowincome countries, like Ethiopia, although appropriate nutritional assessment improves their health. The Mini Nutritional Assessment tool has multiple versions with confirmed validity in diverse languages but not in Amharic. Thus, this study aimed to translate Mini Nutritional Assessment tool into the Amharic language and validate it among old age people in Bahir Dar City. Materials and Methods: The study was cross-sectional and conducted in three stepwise phases from January 16 to March 13, 2021. A total of 10 experts and 180 communitydwelling old age people were respectively selected in heterogeneous purposive sampling and multistage cluster sampling from Bahir Dar City. Principal component analysis was used to measure construct validity while Cronbach’s alpha was employed to assess internal consistency reliability. Results: As experts reviewed, all items in the translated tool are socially acceptable and have no taboo or sensitive words. The translated tool’s item content validity ranged from 0.60 to 1.00 and its content validity ratio was 0.93. Moreover, the construct validity of the tool was confirmed with factor loadings ranging from 0.47 to 0.89 with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.65. The tool had a sensitivity and specificity of 97% and 83%, respectively. Conclusion: The Amharic version of the Mini Nutritional Assessment tool showed good cross-cultural adaption, internal consistency reliability, and construct validity in Bahir Dar community-dwelling old age people. The tool can be used in regular care activities for aged people.

THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN RECTRACTED BASED ON THE AUTHOR'S REQUEST