Self-reported Morbidities, Nutritional Characteristics, and associated factors in Institutionalized and Non-Institutionalized Elderly

Abstract

Background: As the world's population ages and people live longer, it seems important to ensure that older people have a good quality of life and positive subjective well-being. The objective of this study is to determine socio-economic, health and nutritional characteristics of institutionalized and non-institutionalized elders in the province of Marrakech.Methods: This study was conducted among 368 elderly people in the province of Marrakech between March 2017 and June 2019. Of all participants, 180 elderly people reside in a public establishment and 188 of them live at home. Data on health conditions, nutritional status, functional and socio-economic characteristics were collected. Statistical analysis used SPSS software.Results: Institutionalized elders were illiterate (80.0%), had low incomes (95.5%), and unmarried (73.3%).They reported no children (56.1%) and no health insurance (98.9%). Institutional residents suffered from malnutrition (22.2%), hearing impairments (35.6%) and severe edentulism (43.3%). There was no significant difference between both groups on daily activities and depression. A multivariate analysis identified a model with three significant variables associated with non-institutionalized elders: health insurance (P=0.001; OR=107.49), number of children (P=0.001; OR=1.74) and nutritional status (p=0.001; OR=3.853). The data were analyzed by using SPSS version 16.0. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.Conclusions: This study shows that the institutionalization of the elderly is considerably induced by various factors such as nutritional problems, lack of health insurance and family structure. To mitigate the effects of this phenomenon, home care strategies and preventive actions should be carried out to delay the referral of the elderly to institutions and to keep them socially active.