Evaluation of change in dietitians’ perceived comprehensibility and difficulty of the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) after a single training in the use of the instrument

Abstract

Background: The Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) is an instrument used to assess malnutrition and its risk factors. Some items of the PG-SGA may be perceived as hard to comprehend or as difficult by healthcare professionals. The present study aimed to determine whether and how dietitians’ perceptions of comprehensibility and difficulty of the PG-SGA change after a single training in PG-SGA use. Methods: In this prospective evaluation study, Dutch PG-SGA-naïve dietitians completed a questionnaire regarding perceived comprehensibility and difficulty of the PG-SGA before (T0) and after (T1) receiving a single training in the use of the instrument. Perceived comprehensibility and difficulty were operationalised by calculating item and scale indices for comprehensibility (I-CI, S-CI) and difficulty (I-DI, S-DI) at T0 and T1. An item index of 0.78 was considered acceptable, a scale index of 0.80 was considered acceptable and a scale index of 0.90 was considered excellent. Results: A total of 35 participants completed the questionnaire both at T0 and T1. All item indices related to comprehensibility and difficulty improved, although I-DI for the items regarding food intake and physical examination remained below 0.78. Scale indices for difficulty and comprehensibility of the PG-SGA changed significantly (P < 0.001) from not acceptable at T0 (S-CI = 0.69; S-DI = 0.57) to excellent for comprehensibility (S-CI = 0.95) and acceptable for difficulty (S-DI = 0.86) at T1. Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest that significant improvement in PG-SGA-naïve dietitians’ perception of comprehensibility and difficulty of the PG-SGA can be achieved quickly by providing a 1 day of training in the use of the PG-SGA.