Prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia in elderly women living in the community

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify the prevalence of sarcopenia and factors associated with it in a population of elderly women living in the community in the Northeast of Brazil. This was a cross-sectional study of 173 women aged 60 years or older living in the urban zone of the municipality of Lafaiete Coutinho, Bahia, Brazil. Associations between sarcopenia (defined as reduced muscle mass plus reduced muscle strength and/or reduced muscle performance) and independent variables including sociodemographic characteristics, behavioral variables and health status were tested using logistic regression techniques. The significance level was set at 5%. The prevalence of sarcopenia in the study population was 17.8%. The logistic regression technique only identified the variables advanced age (p = 0.005) and hospital admission during the previous 12 months (p = 0.009) as statistically significant. It was concluded that there was a significant prevalence of sarcopenia among elderly women resident in a community with unfavorable health conditions and the findings showed that the strongest associations were with age over 80 years and hospital admission during the previous 12 months.