ABSTRACT
Context: Health of the elderly will be an important issue in defining the health status of a population in coming years. There is a paucity of information with regard to quality of life (QOL) among malnourished elderly. Aims: To assess the QOL among malnourished elderly in a rural field practice areas of tertiary care hospital, Puducherry, and to find the sociodemographic factors associated with QOL among malnourished elderly population. Settings and Design: A community?based cross?sectional study in the rural field areas of Government Medical College of Puducherry. Subjects and Methods: After obtaining ethical approval, the study was conducted among 225 malnourished elderly (>60 years) from April to June 2019 using multistage random sampling technique. Sociodemographic data were obtained using a semistructured questionnaire. Malnutrition was screened using Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form and QOL was assessed using World Health Organization QOL?BREF questionnaire. Results: The mean and standard deviation of the study participants’ age was 69.89 + 6.3 years. 57.8% of them were female, 81.3% were unemployed, and 73.3% were dependent on their old age pension for their livelihood. QOL of malnourished elderly was poor in all the domains when compared to those without malnourished and this is found to be statistically significant. In binomial logistic regression analysis, the presence of comorbidity (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 2.4 and 95% confidence interval: 1.3–4.4), unemployed (AOR: 4.8; 1.4–15.9), and living without family (AOR: 0.2; 0.06–0.7) revealed the statistically significant association with low QOL score among malnourished elderly. Conclusions: The mean score of QOL among malnourished elderly was below average in all four domains in which psychosocial domain was badly affected.
ABSTRACT
Background: Optimal infant and young child feeding practices (IYCF) are essential to address the increasing burden of malnutrition and for the overall development of the children. The present study was conducted to estimate the proportion of optimal infant and young child feeding practices among rural children aged 0 to 23 months and study the associated socio demographic factors.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 360 children in the age group of 0 to 23 months in a rural field practice area of a medical college in Puducherry. Data on IYCF practices were collected using a standardized tool developed by WHO. Core and optional IYCF indicators were calculated. Chi-square test and Fishers’ exact test were used as tests of significance.Results: Almost 88.0% of infants were initiated early on breastfeeding and 90.8% were exclusively breastfed for six months. Children who were continuously breastfed at one year and two years were 77.4% and 22.4% respectively. About 75.0% were introduced with solid or semisolid foods at 6 to 8 months of age. Among children aged 6 to 23 months, 77.3% had the recommended minimum dietary diversity, 81.3% had the minimum meal frequencies, while 57.7% received the minimum acceptable diet and only 39.4% consumed iron rich foods. Gender was significantly associated with the practice of continued breastfeeding at one year, adequate minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency.Conclusions: The core and optional IYCF indicators were acceptably good in the initial six months of life but thereafter showed suboptimal levels, which should be emphasized among the mothers or primary care givers.