Occurrence of Malnutrition and Associated Factors in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Those with a Recent Diagnosis of Cancer Are at Higher Risk.

OBJECTIVES: In older adults, nutritional health is essential for good quality of life and living independently at home. Especially in cancer patients, malnutrition is common and known to complicate treatment. This study aims to evaluate the nutritional status and its associated factors in community-dwelling older adults with and without cancer.
DESIGN: This is an observational study.
SETTING: This study focuses on older community-dwelling people. PARTICIPANTS: This study included older people with and without cancer (≥70 years). Cancer patients included patients with a new diagnosis of breast, lung, prostate, or colorectal cancer. MEASUREMENTS: Data collection included measures of nutritional status, quality of life, depression, fatigue, distress and functional status. We used multivariate logistic regression analysis to assess the association between personal characteristics and malnutrition.
RESULTS: Data were available for 657 people; 383 people without cancer and 274 with a cancer diagnosis. Overall, malnutrition was detected in 245 (37.5%) people; in cancer patients this was 66.1%. Multivariate analysis showed that having cancer (OR 14.4, 95% CI: 8.01 - 23.3), being male (OR 2.38, 95% CI: 1.49 - 3.70), having depression (OR 13.5, 95% CI: 6.02-30.0), distress (OR 2.60, 95% CI: 1.55 - 4.37) and impaired instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) (OR 2.63, 95% CI: 1.63 - 4.24) were associated with a higher risk of malnutrition.
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of malnutrition in community-dwelling older people is high, particularly in patients with cancer. Benchmarking and routine screening of older patients may be helpful strategies to increase awareness of (risk of) malnutrition among professionals.