Background: Malnutrition is one of the most important care problems in the nursing home care sector. The subject of this analysis is the investigation of associative factors for different indicators of malnutrition of residents in nursing homes in Germany.
Methods: A secondary data analysis was conducted using data from 4,478 nursing home residents. Unintended weight loss or reduced intake and BMI ≤ 20 were analysed as indicators for malnutrition. The influence of age, sex, co-morbidities and care dependency were investigated in logistic regression models.
Results: Residents with a high care dependency had a higher risk of suffering weight loss/reduced intake. With regard to BMI ≤ 20, residents aged > 85 years, female gender, cancer, musculoskeletal disease as well as high care dependency had a higher risk.
Conclusion: In both models, care dependency plays a major role in explaining malnutrition. Associative factors for malnutrition must be interpreted according to the indicators used to define malnutrition.