Care Needs of Community-Dwelling Older Adults Living in Poverty and Their Relationship With Other Biopsychosocial Variables: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Ainhoa Fernández-Fernández, Anabel Chica-Pérez, Wladimir Morante-García and 4 others
PMID 40318082WHAT IT FOUND
Half of older adults living in poverty had unmet needs for money and food budgets.
Lower independence, higher loneliness, and poorer quality of life were linked to fewer met care needs. Assessing these social and functional factors is essential for this population.
Key findings
01The most frequently unmet care needs reported by both patients and nurses were related to money and budget for food.
02Participants with greater dependency in basic activities of daily living and lower perceived social support had significantly fewer met care needs.
03Almost 30% of participants were at risk of malnutrition, and 79.8% perceived low social support.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study lacked a control group of older adults not living in poverty, so it cannot determine if these findings are specific to poverty or common in all older adults. Participants were recruited via convenience sampling from a single province in Spain, limiting generalisability. The tool used to measure diet adherence (MEDAS) had poor internal consistency in this sample. Families and caregivers were not involved in the assessment, which may have missed some care needs.
Declared interests
The study was conducted by nurses from the NGO 'Doctors of the World (Andalusia)' and researchers from the University of Almería. No specific commercial funding or conflicts of interest were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these findings prove that poverty causes these specific unmet needs or functional declines. The study is cross-sectional and lacks a control group, so it shows association, not causation, and does not compare these results to older adults who are not living in poverty.