Abstract:
Background: Undernutrition among elderly people is one of the common public health
problems causing greater morbidity and mortality in developing countries. It was often poorly
recognized and under-diagnosed. Evidence on the nutritional status and its associated factors
among elderly population was not well studied in Ethiopia particularly in the study area.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of undernutrition and associated factors among the elderly
population living in Haramaya district, Oromia, Eastern Ethiopia.
Methods: Community based cross-sectional study design was used among randomly selected
449 elderly populations living in Haramaya district through probability sampling methods from
March 01 to 31, 2020. A full Mini Nutritional Assessment tool was used to assess the nutritional
status of the study participants and to classify them as undernourished (MNA score <17).
Validated geriatric depression scale short form (15 items) was employed to screen for depression
and six-item cognitive impairment test to screen dementia status by trained data collectors.
The collected data were entered and cleaned on to EpiData Version 3.02 statistical software and
exported to the SPSS Version 22 statistical package for analysis. Binary and multivariate logistic
regressions were used to analyze the data. Odds ratios along with 95% confidence intervals were
calculated to measure the strength of the association. Level of statistical significance was
declared at p-value less or equal to 0.05.
Results: Of the 449 study participants 51%; 95% CI: (46.3%, 55.5%) were undernourished.
Being a housewife [(AOR=2.35; 95% CI: (1.17, 4.70)], having chronic disease comorbidities
[(AOR=2.11; 95% CI: (1.27, 3.52)], living in food insecure household [(AOR=4.37; 95% CI:
(1.60, 11.93)], not having family/care giver [(AOR=3.19; 95% CI: (1.54, 6.61)] and being in
oldest-old age (≥85 years old) [(AOR=6.63; 95% CI: (1.31, 33.60)] were the factors that were
significantly associated with elderly undernutrition.
Conclusion: Undernutrition among elderly population is high and hence, it is an important
public health problem in the study area. Therefore, all relevant stakeholders should work towards
improving the nutritional status of elderly population.
