Analysis of current status and potential categories of nutritional literacy in elderly patients with chronic diseases: a single-center cross-sectional study

Nutritional literacy among elderly patients with chronic diseases is moderately low and heterogeneous, and can be categorized into three latent profiles. Different categories of elderly patients exhibit distinct nutritional characteristics; therefore, interventions should be tailored to each nutritional literacy category to develop personalized improvement strategies. In particular, more education and support should be provided to "passive dependent type" patients to help enhance their self-management ability and improve their nutritional status, thereby better managing their chronic diseases and improving their quality of life. However, this single-center convenience sample from one Chinese city limits generalizability due to unaccounted regional/cultural diversity. Future multi-center studies across diverse settings should validate these findings.