QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN AN ELDERLY URBAN FEMALE-POPULATION AT RISK FOR NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCY

The promotion of adequate nutritional intake is an important health st rategy with elderly populations. This study assessed the quality of li fe of 84 nutritionally at-risk elderly female community residents usin g measures of physical, social and psychological functioning. These we re then compared with normative data for females from the same urban p opulation. The results indicated that the study sample had significant ly poorer functioning in terms of physical disability (p<.01), symptom s of ageing (p<.001), self esteem (p<.001), depression (p<.01) and cog nition (p<.001). The healthy sample had a significantly more positive perception of both their current health (p<.001) and their health comp ared to others of the same age (p<.01), and overall rated themselves a s happier (p<.001) than did the nutritionally at-risk group. These fin dings confirm an association between poor nutritional status and a low er quality of life in the elderly. The impact of a nutrition intervent ion programme on the well-being of the at-risk sample is currently bei ng assessed.