Can tailored home-delivered meal services alleviate self-rated frailty of the low-income older adults in Korea?

Abstract

This study aimed to examine whether the tailored home-delivered meal (HDM) services included nutrition counseling impacts alleviating self-rated frailty among low-income older adults in Korea. Pre- and post-test were implemented on May 27 and on November 25 in 2019 during 3 weeks, respectively, before and after the 6 months intervention program. Participants completed a questionnaire measuring frailty, malnutrition, food security, depression, and underlying diseases. Initially, 136 older adults were selected as participants for this study, they were recipients of a free meal program from 2 senior welfare centers in Seoul, the final sample size of those who completed the intervention program was 117 (female 70.9%, male 29.1%). Statistical analyses were conducted with IBM SPSS package program, paired t-test and χ2 test to validate the test. There were statistically significant differences in the score of the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) before and after receiving the tailored HDM services (pre-test 9.46, post-test 2.8, P < 0.01). The differences in the score of TFI by 3 risk groups at the pre-test decreased as a result of receiving these services. The tailored HDM services alleviated the self-rated frailty of low-income older adults with limited mobility in a community setting. Based on the positive outcomes this study could be applied to developing social services for aging in place.