Assessment of the performance of the SarQoL® questionnaire in screening for sarcopenia in older people

Abstract

Background Because of its low prevalence and the need for physical tests to establish a diagnosis, recruiting sarcopenic people for clinical studies can be a resource-intensive process. Aims We investigated whether the SarQoL ® , a 55-item questionnaire designed to measure quality of life in sarcopenia, could be used to identify older people with a high likelihood of being sarcopenic, and to compare its performance to the SARC-F tool. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of data from older, community-dwelling participants of the SarcoPhAge study, evaluated for sarcopenia according to the EWGSOP2 criteria, and who completed the SarQoL ® and SARC-F questionnaires. We determined the optimal threshold to distinguish between sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic people with the Youden index. Screening performance was evaluated with the area under the curve (AUC) and by calculating sensitivity and specificity. ResultsThe analysis of 309 participants provided an optimal threshold value of ≤ 52.4 points for identifying people with sarcopenia with the SarQoL ® questionnaire, which resulted in a sensitivity of 64.7% (41.1-84.2%), a specificity of 80.5% (75.7-84.7%) and an AUC of 0.771 (0.652-0.889). Compared to the SARC-F, the SarQoL ® has greater sensitivity (64.7% vs 52.39%), but slightly lower specificity (80.5% vs. 86.6%). Discussion The SarQoL ® questionnaire showed acceptable screening accuracy, on par with the SARC-F. The optimal threshold of ≤ 52.4 points should be confirmed in other cohorts of older people. Conclusions This exploratory study showed that the SarQoL ® could potentially be applied in a screening strategy, with the added benefit of providing a measure of QoL at the same time.

SarQoL Questionnaire in Community-Dwelling Older Adults under EWGSOP2 Sarcopenia Diagnosis Algorithm: A New Screening Method?

“…Our study used a sample size and yielded results similar to those obtained by Geerinck et al [ 54 ] in their initial research to observe the feasibility of the SarQoL questionnaire as a screening method for sarcopenia. The cut-off score obtained in their study was 52.4 points when assessing the risk between low and high of suffering from the disease, while the researchers of this article placed it at 60 points.…”

“…Additionally, the area under the curve obtained by Geerinck et al [54] for the total score of the SarQoL questionnaire was higher (0.771) than the score obtained by the researchers of this study when the same conditions were applied to the group with the disease (Table 5) or including the cases of probable sarcopenia (0.756).…”

“…The cut-off score obtained in their study was 52.4 points when assessing the risk between low and high of suffering from the disease, while the researchers of this article placed it at 60 points. This difference could be due to the fact that the entire sample of the work presented by Geerinck et al [ 54 ] was not collected outside health institutions or because no cases with probable sarcopenia were included in its intervention group.…”

“…After consulting some publications in which the use of the SARC-F test [ 28 ] recommended by the EWGSOP2 [ 1 ] as a screening tool for sarcopenia was discussed, the authors detected some uncertainty regarding the current capacity of the test to detect early possible cases of sarcopenia [ 17 , 54 , 64 ]. That is why, after observing the significant differences in terms of quality of life between subjects living in the community with or without sarcopenic pathology, regardless of sex, and taking into account the purpose of this possible new adaptation of the SarQoL questionnaire, as well as the original function of the SARC-F as a screening questionnaire, the authors decided that it was relevant to include the subjects with probable sarcopenia within the group with sarcopenia in the study, since the early detection of a presarcopenic situation is also relevant in current medicine.…”

SARC-F and other screening tests for sarcopenia

“…SarQoL questionnaire has been developed to evaluate quality of life in sarcopenia through 55 items categorized into 7 domains of health-related dysfunction. Recently, it has been studied as a screening tool for diagnosis of EWGSOP2 confirmed sarcopenia [35] and its performance was compared with that of SARC-F and Ishii tests. The screening accuracy of the SarQoL questionnaire was comparable to the SARC-F questionnaire but inferior to the Ishii test.…”