ABSTRACT
Objective: To identify the relationship between Dietary Diversity and Nutritional Status in Elderly Inpatient. Methods: 136 elderly inpatients were selected in a tertiary hospital in Yunnan Provience. Food frequency questionnaire was used to collect dietary information and DDS9 was calculated; We used Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) to evaluate nutritional status, then analyzed the effect of Dietary Diversity on nutritional status in elderly inpatients. Results:① Patients at risk of malnutrition and with confirmed malnutrition in participants were 46. 3％, 33. 8％,, respectively. ② The incidence of insufficient diversity, moderate diversity and adequate diversity were 19. 9％, 77. 2％ and 2. 9％, respectively; the total scores of dietary diversity were (4. 68 ± 1. 27). However, apart from vegetables, the rest 8 kinds of food all showed lower scores of intra-group variety; while the consumption of beans, nuts and seafood was seriously inadequate. ③ The incidence of malnutrition risk and confirmed malnutrition in insufficient-diversity group and moderate-diversity group were 5. 109 times and 1. 094 times of adequacy group (P＜ 0. 05). Conclusion: Dietary diversity is strongly associated with putritional status in elderly inpatient. Improvement of dietary diversity status is potentially beneficial in the prevention of malnutrition.