Evaluation of the nutritional status of the elderly living in manisa nursing home

Objective: It is to determine the frequency of malnutrition of elderly people staying in a nursing home in Manisa and to explain the factors affecting their nutritional status. Materials and Methods: This research is a cross-sectional study.Studies were conducted on 82 elderly individuals staying in Manisa Municipality Muammer Cider Nursing Home, Manisa Huzurevi Vakfı and Manisa Salihli Private Lidya Sardes Care and Rehabilitation Center located in the center of Manisa. The data of the research was collected through face-to-face interviews with a questionnaire. The questionnaire includes questions the socio-demographic characteristics, health conditions, anthropometric measurements, and nutritional habits of the individuals. The data were collected by evaluating individuals with Mini Nutrition Assessment (MNA) test, KATZ Daily Living Activities scale, vulnerability scale and geriatric depression scale short form. During the data analysis process of the study means, standart deviations, frequencies were prepared a descriptive statistics and Chi-square test for categorical variables and logistic regression analysis were used. Findings: Among the participating elderly in study 61% were male, 39% were females. The mean age of the participant was 74.95±8.27. 52.4% of individuals were in normal nutritional status, 46.3% were at risk for malnutrition and 1.2% were malnourished. 46.9% of women and 48.0% of men are risky in terms of malnutrition. There was no significant relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and malnutrition. There is a significant difference in the relationship between hypertension, neurological disease, feeling tired in the last three months, the number of emergency visits, and depression with malnutrition. According to Katz, 64.0% of dependent or partially dependent individuals have malnutrition risk, while this rate is 40.4% for independent individuals. The prevalence of malnutrition (80.0%) was found to be higher in the frail elderly than the pre-railed (46.9%) and normal (12.5%) elderly (p <0.05). Conclusion: In order to prevent malnutrition in the elderly living in nursing homes, it was concluded that feeding screening should be done regularly and the factors affecting their nutritional status should be evaluated in a multifaceted way.