Condição mastigatória, consumo alimentar e estado nutricional de idosos em Itaqui-RS

Abstract

The world is in demographic evolution and thus becoming older and with diverse modifications of the population health, presence of non-transmissible chronic diseases and also problems of the own aging as the masticatory difficulty and alterations in the nutritional state. The objective of the present study was to verify the relationship between masticatory conditions, food choice and nutritional status of the elderly in the city of Itaqui-RS. This is an observational cross-sectional, descriptive study with elderly individuals 60 years of age or older, in outpatient care at public health units in the city of Itaqui-RS. Data collection was performed through the application of general data questionnaires with open and closed questions of socioeconomic and socio demographic data, as well as the evaluation of chewing capacity, nutritional status and 24-hour food recall form with 22 related questions to the dental situation, eating habits and masticatory conditions. Pearson's Chi-Square test was used for the analyzes, considering the Confidence Interval of 95% (95% CI). For quantitative variables, mean and standard deviation were used, using Student's t-test. The data were evaluated in the program Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0. They were considered statistically significant when p ≤ 0.05. In this study it was observed that the majority of the elderly are female, aged 60 to 93 years, white, income less than two minimum wages, with incomplete high school, being single / separated / widowed. The majority were overweight / obese when evaluated by BMI, in addition to presenting the use of dental prosthesis, more than half of the participants did not report changes in masticatory conditions maintaining the same feeding before edentulism, presenting no difficulty and / or inability to eat food, besides having preference for foods of soft classes. In food consumption, there are large and minimal variations in VCT, values that are related to the inadequate eating habits of the elderly. The study presents statistically significant values related to BMI and the classes of food they prefer. It can be concluded that among the elderly, the majority do not present masticatory conditions, even with the use of dental prostheses they can consume any type of food, although they prefer soft foods, a fact that may have interfered in weight, being overweight /Obesity.