Abstract

Nutritional status can be affected by various factors that predispose the elderly population to nutritional risk. These factors can be identified by nutritional screening methods.

Objective:  To design an instrument from variables studied in the elderly population of Costa Rica that screens for nutritional risk in Costa Rican health services.

Methodology:  Cross sectional study that took place during the second half of 2012. It was approved by the Local Ethic Committees. The sample size was 193 people. A descriptive analysis was performed with the SPSS v.17 program. Factor analysis was performed. The Rasch model was used for the item test using the Winsteps program.

Results:  The exploratory analysis showed that all variables (cohabitation, pension, economic, chronic diseases, cancer, polypharmacy, weight loss, appetite loss, edentulism, prosthetic presence, health perception, emotional, ingestion, anthropometry and functionality) are grouped into a single factor that explains nutritional risk. 28 questions were asked to measure nutritional risk in the study sample. The final instrument consisted of 20 questions after seven questions were eliminated due to low variability and one question because it showed differences by sex. The average reliability of the questions is high (0,95). The scale resulting from this study allows an objective nutritional risk measurement in the elderly population.

Keywords: Elderly; screening; population