Correlation of nutritional status in elderly patients with Alzheimer disease and self-efficacy of their caregivers / 中华临床营养杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the correlation between nutritional status in elderly patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and self-efficacy of their caregivers.Methods Ninety-two elderly patients with AD and 92 their caregivers were enrolled from a Peking Union Medical College in Beijing from March to October 2017,who were evaluated by the mini nutritional assessment short form (MNA-SF) and the general self-efficacy scale (GSES) respectively for the nutritional status of the AD patients and the self-efficacy of their caregivers,and the correlation between them was analyzed.Results The average MNA-SF score of the AD patients was 7.8± 2.5.The incidence of malnutrition risk and malnutrition were 34.8％ and 27.2％ respectively.The MNA-SF score of the AD patients decreased (F =4.589,P =0.009),and the incidence of malnutrition risk (x2 =7.319,P =0.026) and malnutrition (x2 =7.080,P =0.032) increased significantly with the aggravation of AD.The average self-efficacy score of the caregivers was 2.20±0.45.With the aggravation of AD,the GSES score of the caregivers decreased significantly (F=3.122,P=0.016).There was a positive correlation between the nutritional status of the AD patients and the self-efficacy of their caregivers (r =0.254,P =0.022).Conclusion The nutritional status in elderly patients with AD is positively correlated with the self-efficacy of their caregivers,that is,the higher GSES score of the caregiver is,the better nutritional status of the AD patient has.