Background: Although malnutrition risk is well documented in elderly care institutions, few studies have been conducted to address concerns regarding community-dwelling elderly people. This study has been aimed to describe the nutritional status and its related socioeconomic and geriatric factors in community-dwelling elders with malnutrition.
Method: For this study, a randomized sampling among people aged 60 has been done (n = 326). Information on nutrition status (full MNA) and health information, like cognitive status (MMSE), daily functional status (ADL and IADL scales) and frailty was obtained. Multiple logistic regression analyses have been carried out, in order to identify the association of demographical and clinical factors with malnutrition.
Results: 28.1% of the participants suffered from poor nutrition. In the binary analysis, low MNA scores were associated with increasing age, female gender, lower education level, financial dependence, solitary life, poor self-rated health, multiple physical disabilities and chronic disease, polypharmacy, smoking, functional and cognitive decrease and frailty. In the final model of the multivariate analysis, living alone (OR:1.249,CI:1.105-2.620), multiple physical disabilities (OR:2.183,CI:1.246 ± 3..250) and chronic disease (OR: 2.148,CI:1.167-2.879) were independently associated with malnutrition. Also financial independency (OR:0.625,CI:0.233-0.938), functional ability on ADL (OR:0.536,CI:0.327-0.976) and IADL (OR:0.319,CI:0.194-0.856), normal cognitive (OR:0.456,CI:0.293-0.934) and no frailty (OR:0.253,CI:0.117-0.729) independently were inversely associated with malnutrition. The model was adjusted for all socio- demographic and health variables that were significantly related in the previous models.
Conclusions: Our results indicated a strong correlation between malnutrition and health status. Identifying predictive factors can potentially improve prevention and management strategies used for malnutrition in elderly.
Keywords: Elderly; MNA; Malnutrition; Nutritional screening.