Abstract

SOCARRAS SUAREZ, María Matilde; BOLET ASTOVIZA, Miriam; CASTANEDA ABASCAL, Ileana  and  BETANCOURT BALTRELL, Dania. Malnutrition in third-age patients admitted in “General Calixto García” Hospital. Rev Cubana Invest Bioméd [online]. 2006, vol.25, n.4, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-3011.

The frequency of malnutrition of the geriatric patients admitted was determined and energy malnutrition was related to sex, base disease, the presence of neoplasias, and the services of the institution. 103 aged patients admitted in 2005 were studied by  a subjective epidemiological survey and by another survey,  where data were taken from the medical history. In the statistical analysis, it was identified the association between the nutritonal state and some variables of interest. The independence test with the X² statistic   was used with a significance level of 0.05. 42.7 % were malnourished. It was observed a predominance of the digestive diseases (35 %) followed by the respiratory (23 %). It was concluded that malnutrition is elevated among the geriatric patients and that an effective nutritional intervention program should be implemented to reduce it.

Keywords : Energy malnutrition; hospitalized patients; global subjective evaluation; elderly.