Association of hand grip strength nutritional status and quality of life among working and non working females

Abstract

Women play an important role in society as well as in the family. Being backbone of the family, she has to be the strongest part of the family. Earlier men were the bread earner of the family but now with the change in demands of the family women has to come out of their home to earn to have a better lifestyle and quality of life. Quality of life (QOL) is a personal judgment of a person to live his or her life. It is dependent on her psychological, physical, and physiological state. The strength in muscles/physical strength helps a woman to perform her daily routine activities with zeal and less fatigue. Her nutritional status helps build immunity thus protecting against diseases thus promoting physical and physiological wellbeing. The study aimed to assess the association between quality of life, handgrip strength, and Nutritional status and compare them among working and non-working females. A total of 370 females from Delhi and NCR region were taken as subjects who were divided into two groups, Group A working females, and Group B Non-Working Females as per inclusion criteria. Females of both the groups were asked to fill out Short Form 36 form for Quality-of-Life (QOL) assessment and Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) tool for Nutritional status score. Hand grip strength (HGS) was measured using Hand held Dynamometer. The result of the present study suggests that a few domains of QOL in working women viz Energy Fatigue Vs Nutritional status; Social Function vs Body Mass Index (BMI)and Nutritional status; BMI vs HGS; BMI vs Nutritional status show a positive correlation. Social Function vs BMI and HGS, Role limitations due to Emotional Problems vs HGS, Energy fatigue vs HGS, BMI vs HGS, BMI vs Nutritional status among the non-working population show a positive correlation. Independent t-test for QOL of working females showed significantly better results than non-working females at a p valuelt0.05.BMI, Nutritional status and HGS is not significantly different among the working and non-working female population. Thus,