BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is highly prevalent in the elderly. It is related to biological, functional and psychosocial aging factors. The objective was to investigate the association between family dysfunction (FD) and malnutrition in the elderly. METHODS: Cross sectional study. Through family Apgar Short Nutritional Examination (MNA) were documented FD (Apgar = 7) , and poor nutritional status (= 22 in the MNA) in a sample of 103 elderly over 60 years, excluding those with special diet or any professional prescription disease determinant of weight changes. We calculated odds ratio (OR) with a 95 % confidence interval (CI). The variables were compared using chi-square. RESULTS: There were no differences between groups of family functionality regarding sex, occupation, education, marital status, socioeconomic status and life cycle. The proportion of people with MNA = 22 was 79.4 % (27 of 34) in the FD group vs. 10.1 % (7 of 69) in the group without FD, OR = 11.8 (95 % CI 3.97-36.5), p = 0.001. CONCLUSIONS: The FD is associated with malnutrition in the elderly through MNA, but it is not limited only to malnutrition, it is also associated with diseases such as diabetes, pneumonia and hypertension.
BACKGROUND:Malnutrition is highly prevalent in the elderly. It is related to biological, functional and psychosocial aging factors. The objective was to investigate the association between family dysfunction (FD) and malnutrition in the elderly. METHODS: Cross sectional study. Through family Apgar Short Nutritional Examination (MNA) were documented FD (Apgar = 7) , and poor nutritional status (= 22 in the MNA) in a sample of 103 elderly over 60 years, excluding those with special diet or any professional prescription disease determinant of weight changes. We calculated odds ratio (OR) with a 95 % confidence interval (CI). The variables were compared using chi-square. RESULTS: There were no differences between groups of family functionality regarding sex, occupation, education, marital status, socioeconomic status and life cycle. The proportion of people with MNA = 22 was 79.4 % (27 of 34) in the FD group vs. 10.1 % (7 of 69) in the group without FD, OR = 11.8 (95 % CI 3.97-36.5), p = 0.001. CONCLUSIONS: The FD is associated with malnutrition in the elderly through MNA, but it is not limited only to malnutrition, it is also associated with diseases such as diabetes, pneumonia and hypertension.
Entities:
Keywords:
Elderly; Family dysfunction; Malnutrition
Authors: Pei-Hsin Yang; Meng-Chih Lin; Yi-Ying Liu; Chia-Lun Lee; Nai-Jen Chang Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2019-11-27 Impact factor: 3.390