Abstract
The Meals on Wheels program has been widely adopted in Taiwan since 1997. However, only few surveys investigated this program. We investigated the demands of 68 independent-living elderly persons (42 males and 26 females: mean age, 78 years, range, 67-93 years) for the Meal on Wheels program. The results showed the score for the Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI) checklist was 5.35 ± 3.40. There were 18 (26.5%), 18 (26.5%), and 32 (47.1%) people in the low, moderate, and high nutritional risk groups, respectively. Among these elderly, 33.9% demanded for meal delivery service (14 people needed, 36 people did not need, and 18 people were not sure). The demand for meal delivery service was correlated with religious beliefs, marital status, and perception of their health status. The persons who had the demand for meal delivery service had a higher prevalence of malnutrition than those who had no demand or were not sure based on the NSI score.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 12-20 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Nutritional Sciences Journal |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2004 |
Keywords
- Independent-living elderly
- Meals-on-wheels
- Nutrition assessment
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine (miscellaneous)
- Food Science
