Assessment of Nutritional Status and its Associated Factors among the Elderly Population: A Cross-sectional Study from Rural Area of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

Introduction: Elderly malnutrition is an iceberg phenomenon and remains undiagnosed most of the time. The elderly people are at risk of malnutrition due to physical, psychological, social, dietary and environmental risk factors. When malnutrition gets compounded with various co-morbidities, it turns into a vicious cycle. Aim: To focus on the assessment of nutritional status and its associated factors among the elderly population above 60 years of age in a rural area of Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, India. Materials and Methods: This was a community-based crosssectional study done for a period of four months in the rural field practice area of Madurai Medical College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Following ethical clearance, study subjects were selected by using single stage area wise cluster sampling technique. Data was collected from 240 elderly individuals by face to face interview using semistructured questionnaire. Details regarding socio-demographic variables like age, gender, educational status, occupational status, economic dependency and place of residence were taken. Nestle’s Short Form Mini Nutritional Assessment (SF-MNA) screening tool was used to assess the nutritional status of the study participants. The association was assessed by Chi-square test. Significance level was considered at p-value of ≤0.05. Results: Prevalence of malnutrition was seen among 33 (13.75%) individuals. A 105 (43.75%) were at the risk of malnutrition and 102 (42.5%) had satisfactory nutritional status. The comparison between well nourished, at risk of malnutrition and malnourished groups showed significant differences with respect to age (p-value=0.016), economic dependency (p-value=0.002), place of residence (p-value=0.004), Body Mass Index (BMI) (p-value=0.024), calf circumference (p-value=0.016) and presence of co-morbid illness (p-value=0.015). Conclusion: The findings of the present study clearly indicate that malnutrition is a multifactorial condition associated with socio-demographic, somatic and functional status. A multidimensional approach is required to deal with these issues. Nutritional assessment and screening of elderly people should be done by opportunistic screening for early detection of malnutrition and to implement an appropriate nutritional intervention.