Nutritional risk and health care use before and after an acute hospitalization among the elderly.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to assess the nutritional status and health care use of community-dwelling elderly before hospitalization and determine risk factors for longer hospitalizations during 3 mo of follow-up. METHODS: During a 1-y period, we recruited patients 65 y and older admitted to an internal medicine ward at Soroka Medical Center (Beer-Sheva, Israel). Data were obtained regarding health and nutritional status and demographic and social characteristics. We assessed the utilization of health care services during a follow-up period of 3 mo. RESULTS: Seventy-nine of 204 patients (38.7%) were at nutritional risk. Patients at nutritional risk were older (P < 0.001) and less educated (P = 0.03) than the well-nourished group. Nutritional risk was associated with more diagnosed diseases, days of hospital stay, and physician visits before admission. Participants hospitalized for more than 6 d were significantly less educated, with lower cognitive, functional, Mini Nutritional Assessment, and Nutritional Risk Index scores and a significantly higher depressive symptoms score. Functional status and sum of nutritional problems were significant predictors of length of hospitalization in the following 3 mo. CONCLUSION: Nutritional risk is a source of concern for health care providers and services, because it significantly increases risk of hospital admission and length of stay. It is important to increase the awareness of primary care providers to the impact of nutrition on health care use and provide appropriate tools to screen and treat nutritional problems.

Parenting styles and eating disorder pathology.

Our objective was to investigate the association between parenting style and eating disorder symptoms in patients treated in an intensive outpatient center for eating disorders. The study design is a cross-sectional survey set in a community-based facility for eating disorders. Participants included 53 families, including 32 with a child meeting the DSM-IV criteria for anorexia nervosa, 18 for bulimia nervosa, and 3 diagnosed ED-NOS. Data was collected using the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 (EDI-2) and the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26). Significant, negative correlations were found between drive for thinness scores and body dissatisfaction scores and the patient's perception of the father as authoritative. Total patient EDI score was significantly and positively correlated with patient's perception of the father as authoritarian and inversely correlated with her perception of him as authoritative. These results emphasize the importance of fathers' role in the eating disorder pathology, a relatively untapped area of research.

Parenting styles and weight-related symptoms and behaviors with recommendations for practice.

With the incidence of eating disorders increasing in recent years, the role of parents in the pathology of these illnesses is of great interest, particularly the impact of their parenting style. Few studies have investigated the connection between parenting styles and adolescent eating disorders. Reviewed here are key studies on parenting style categorized into the following four broad areas related to eating disorder pathology: food-related symptoms, feeding style, research on ethnic populations, and populations with eating disorders. The results reflect previous findings on the benefits of the authoritative parenting style. Suggestions for parenting programs and further research are included.