[Assessment of nutritional status and well-being in people over 65 years old in the province of Guadalajara (Spain)].

Abstract

Introduction: Introduction: well-being is a fundamental pillar of health, based on happiness, satisfaction with life, emotions and personal fulfillment. This well-being, like health in general, is influenced by nutritional status. Aims: to analyze the existing association between well-being and nutritional status in people over 65 years of age. Material and methods: a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design study with a sample of 120 patients from an urban primary care center in the province of Guadalajara, which belongs to the Castilla-La Mancha Health System (SESCAM). Data have been collected from validated nutritional status questionnaires, such as the Mini-Nutritional Statement (MNA) and the Mediterranean diet adherence test; on emotional well-being such as the Gallup Happiness Scale, the Diener Satisfaction Scale and the Warwick-Edinburgh Emotional Well-Being Scale (EBMWE). Correlations between the scale scores (quantitative values) were calculated, showing the Spearman coefficient (rho), the number of observations and the p-value of the correlation in addition to the association between the categorized scales, using the Chi2 test, Fisher's exact test, Student's t, Mann Withney U, ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test. Results: the participants, with a mean age of 74 years (SD: ± 5.06), of which 55 % (n = 66) are women, mostly had a good nutritional status (91.7 %), with adequate adherence to the diet (55 %), with life satisfaction (98.3 %), with happiness (81.48 %) and with emotional well-being (53 %). The correlation between the happiness scale and the MNA scale shows that 80 % of patients in a state of malnutrition are suffering or struggling, just as it happens in the correlation between the Diener satisfaction scale and the MNA scale. On the other hand, the correlations between the emotional well-being scale (EBMWE) and MNA are not significant; neither are they between the test of adherence to the Mediterranean diet and the satisfaction scale, nor between the happiness scale and the EBMWE scale. Conclusions: people with excess malnutrition, or risk of malnutrition, and those with low adherence to the Mediterranean diet show levels of lower happiness and greater dissatisfaction. More studies would be needed to corroborate our results.