Validation of the Chinese version of the Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment questionnaire in community-dwelling older adults

A new sarcopenia screening tool named Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment (MSRA) has recently been developed, which showed a reasonable sensitivity and specificity. We cross-culturally adapted and validated the Chinese version of the MSRA in a population of community-dwelling older adults. We conducted a cross-sectional study in a community in Chengdu, China. Older adults aged 60 years or older were included. A Chinese translation of the MSRA was created. The Chinese version of the MSRA included 2 questionnaires named C-MSRA-7 (containing 7 items) and C-MSRA-5 (containing 5 items). For C-MSRA-7 and C-MSRA-5, total scores of ≤ 30 and 45, respectively, indicate that the subject has sarcopenia. Using 4 common diagnostic criteria of sarcopenia (the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People, Asia Working Group for Sarcopenia, International Working Group on Sarcopenia, and Foundation for the National Institutes of Health criteria) as the “gold standard”; the sensitivity and specificity of the C-MSRA-7 and C-MSRA-5 were examined. We applied the receiver operating characteristic curve to compare the overall accuracy of the C-MSRA-7 and C-MSRA-5 for screening sarcopenia. We recruited 384 participants (mean age: 71.5 ± 5.8 years). Using different criteria as the “gold standard,” both C-MSRA-7 and C-MSRA-5 have acceptable sensitivity (ranging from 78.0% [95% confidence interval [CI]: 66.3–87.7] to 86.9% [95% CI: 75.87–94.2] for C-MSRA-7 and from 80.2% [95% CI: 70.8–87.6] to 90.2% [95% CI: 79.8–96.3] for C-MSRA-5) for screening sarcopenia. However, compared with the C-MSRA-7, the C-MSRA-5 is simpler and has better specificity (ranging from 55.9% to 70.6% for C-MSRA-5; and 38.3% to 41.0% for C-MSRA-7) and overall diagnostic accuracy. The MSRA scale was successfully adapted to the Chinese language and validated in Chinese community-dwelling older adults. Compared with C-MSRA-7, C-MSRA-5 is the better tool for screening sarcopenia.