Differentiation of the Nutritional Risk of Polish Elderly People According to Selected Demographic Characteristics and Declared Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

Nutritional risk screening in older people can help to not only identify health risks but also to treat them effectively. The aim of this work was to assess the relationship between the demographic characteristics (age, gender and place of residence) and socioeconomic status of older people in the community and nutritional risk. The Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition (SCREEN-14) questionnaire was used to evaluate the nutritional risk. The study was conducted in 417 people (312 women and 105 men) between 60 and 95 years old (70.8 ± 6.73 years). Multivariate correspondence analysis (MCA) was used to determine the relationships between the categories of variables describing the level of nutritional risk, demographic characteristics and the value of the socioeconomic status (SES) index. To assess the relationship between identified nutritional risks, demographics and SES index variables, we used logistic regression analysis. Based on these studies, nutritional risk factors for older people in Poland were identified. It has been shown that larger cities and low socioeconomic status are closely linked to higher nutritional risk. At the same time, age and gender were not significant factors influencing nutritional risk. Identifying the factors that increase the nutritional risk of older people can help to improve their quality of life.