Dehydration of elderly people. Insufficient fluid intake. Uitdroging bij ouderen. Onvoldoende vochtinname.
Conditions
Interventions
Intervention 1. Education
The elderly people in this group recieve information from a practice nurse during a home visit or consultation. Information is given on the recommended daily fluid intake and
Sponsors
The primairy perfomer is Regional Public Health Service West-Brabant. The study is performed in association with Tilburg University and General practice de Keen in Etten-Leur.
Eligibility
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria: Patients of 80 years and older. Patients of 65 years and older with a heart disease.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: Patients who are not able to correspond in Dutch. Patients with cognitive impairments. Patients with kidney-/bladder diseases.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The main parameter on individual and group level is the daily fluid intake (the quantity of daily used cups/glasses). The fluid intake is measured by open-end questions regarding the quantity of intake of different kinds of fluid (water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, excluding alcoholic drinks) the day before completing the questionnaire. The answers on the questionnaire regarding the quantity of different fluids they drink are summed to one overall score of cups/glasses a day and a total quantity of cc a day. | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| The other parameters are level of knowledge and awareness (of risks of dehydration), quality of life and experiences with the interventions. The knowledge about the risks of dehydration is measured by 4 items, with which the elderly can agree or disagree on a 3-point scale (e.q. ‘this is correct’, ‘this is not correct’ and ‘I don’t know’). The items are: ‘When your fluid intake is too low, you always get thirsty’, ‘When it is hot your fluid intake should be higher than on normal days in order to prevent dehydration’, ‘When you drink alcohol you lose more fluid than you consume’ and ‘When you are dehydrated you will urinate more than normal’. To measure the awareness of risk of dehydration the following 3 questions are used: “Do you think you drink sufficiently?”, “Do you think you are at risk of getting dehydrated? And if so, what is the reason you think you are at risk?”. The possible answers on the first 2 questions are: ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘I don’t know’. For the last question the elderly can choose from 2 reasons (‘because of my age’ or ‘because of my illness’) or/and add another reason. The score of correct answers on the items knowledge and awareness in the questionnaire are converted in a overall score representing knowledge and awareness. To measure the quality of life the EuroQol questionnaire [14] is used. This validated questionnaire provides an index value for health status (a measure for quality of life) and is also suitable for elderly people. It contains 5 questions with answers on a 3-point scale. These questions include mobility, self-sufficiency, daily activities, pain and mood. The questionnaire also contains a general question about the participants’s self-rated health state on a vertical, visual analogue scale where the endpoints are labelled ‘Best imaginable health state’ and ‘Worst imaginable health state’. The participants are asked to give a score from 0 to 100. To measure the experiences of the elderly with the interventions we cond | — |
Contacts
Public ContactFrancis Konings
GGD West-Brabant P.O. Box 30241, 5003 DA Tilburg
Outcome results
None listed