Prevalencia de malnutrición y factores asociados como depresión y funcionalidad en la población adulta mayor; Azuay 2019

Abstract

Background: malnutrition determines health status of older adults since it increases the risk of developing life-threatening diseases. Depression and functional damage are factors that apparently have significant influence on nutritional status, contributing to deteriorate the quality of life of this population group. Objective: determine the prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors such as depression and functionality in the elderly population; Azuay 2019. Method: a cross-sectional study was carried out on 400older adults. Nutritional status was assessed by using the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and body mass index (BMI).The level of depression was evaluated with Yesavage scale and the grade of functional independence with Katz and Barthel scales. Data was analyzed and tabulated in the SPSS program version 15.0with descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. In order to establish association, Odds Ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval was used and for statistical significance Chi square with its p-value.

Results: the prevalence rate of malnutrition according to BMI was 59% with a predominance of overweight (30.8%), whereas with the MNA 36% of older adults were at risk of malnutrition and 3.5% had malnutrition, which was strongly associated with a certain level of functional impairment (OR: 2,609; IC 1,724 – 3,948) and depression (OR: 14,215; IC 6,226 – 32,453).

Conclusion: more than half of the population studied had different types of malnutrition and overweight prevailed. A statistically significant association was found between malnutrition and the associated factors analyzed.