Nutritional Status of Older Persons

Data for this study was collected from older persons and Key informants. Information from older persons which included nutritional status, dietary diversity and the availability and accessibility of health services and the state of hygiene and sanitation facilities was obtained using questionaires. An interview guide was used to obtain relevant information from the key informants. Data collected from older persons was analyzed using SPSS Software while that from key informants was used in discussion of results. Results indicated that 85.9% of the respondents consumed less than 4 food groups which indicated low dietary diversity score. More than twelve percent (12.5%) of the respondents were undernourished. Sanitation and hygiene facilities were not easily accessible to everyone in the study area. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between dietary diversity and education level of older persons (p=0.001) and BMI and education level (P=0.001). The results also showed that there is a significant positive correlation (p = 0.11) between dietary diversity and BMI. These results indicated that nutrition of older persons is still inadequate.