Nutritional Status among Portuguese and Turkish Older Adults Living in the Community: Relationships with Sociodemographic, Health and Anthropometric Characteristics

• Autor(a) principal: Ozturk, ME
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Poínhos, Rui, Afonso, Cláudia, Ayhan, NY, Almeida, Maria Daniel Vaz de, Bruno M P M Oliveira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/151210
• topic: Ciências da Saúde, Ciências médicas e da saúde; Health sciences, Medical and Health sciences

Malnutrition is widespread among older adults, and its determinants may differ between countries. We compared Portuguese and Turkish non-institutionalized older adults regarding nutritional status, sociodemographic, health and anthropometric characteristics and studied the relationships between nutritional status and those characteristics. This cross-sectional study analyzed data from 430 Portuguese and 162 Turkish non-institutionalized older adults regarding sociodemographics, health conditions, the Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA-FF) and anthropometry. Turkish older adults were more likely to be malnourished or at risk of malnutrition and had lower average BMI but a higher calf circumference. A higher proportion of the Portuguese sample had tooth loss, diabetes, hypertension, oncologic diseases, kidney diseases, osteoarticular problems or eye problems, while less had anemia. A better nutritional status (higher MNA-FF score) was found among the Portuguese, males, people using dentures, those without tooth loss, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, anemia or oncological diseases and was related to younger age, higher BMI and a higher calf circumference. Malnutrition and its risk were higher among older adults from Turkey, despite Portuguese older adults presenting a higher prevalence of chronic diseases. Being female, older age, tooth loss, hypertension, anemia, CVD or oncological disorders and having a lower BMI or CC were associated with higher rates of malnutrition among older adults from Portugal and Turkey.