title: Nutritional status and its health-related factors among older adults in rural and urban areas.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare health-related characteristics, nutrition-related factors and nutritional status of older adults living in rural and urban counties of Taiwan.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  The older adult population of Taiwan is increasing. Furthermore, older people living in rural areas have shorter life expectancy and more chronic diseases than their urban counterparts. However, little is known about the health-related characteristics, nutrition-related factors and nutritional status of older adults living in rural and urban areas of Taiwan, limiting nurses' ability to identify and care for older adults at risk of poor nutritional health.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional, comparative.
  
  
  METHODS
  Older adults were randomly selected from names of residents of an adjacent rural and urban area of northern Taiwan and having completing the 2009 health evaluation. From March-July 2010, older adult participants (N = 366) provided data on demographic and health-related information, nutritional self-efficacy, health locus of control and nutritional status. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics and compared using chi-square and t-test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Older rural participants had significantly lower educational level, less adequate income, higher medication use, lower scores on self-rated health status and researcher-rated health status and lower self-rated healthy eating status than their urban counterparts. Moreover, rural participants had significantly lower nutritional self-efficacy, higher chance health locus of control and poorer nutritional status than their urban counterparts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that nurses should assess older adults living in rural areas for nutritional health and nutrition knowledge. Based on this assessment, nurses should develop easy, practical and accessible nutritional programmes for this population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Su-Hui
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hsin-Yi
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Yeu-Hui
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: Jung-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Shao
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012424:Rural Population; D013624:Taiwan; D014505:Urban Population
keywords: health locus of control; nurse; nursing; nutritional status; older adults; rural-urban; self-efficacy