Nutritional status and health profile among single mothers in Malaysia

Sakinah, H; Aini, M.Y. Noor; Shariza, A.R.; Teoh, Christopher

doi:10.1017/s0029665117003159

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In addition, single mothers are more likely to be employed in low paid jobs which is probably due to their education level [44]. Basically, education is a gateway to job opportunity and sufficient income and the lack of it may deteriorate household economic situations [45].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precarious Employment amongst Low Income Single Mothers in Malaysia: The Implications on Family Wellbeing

Nor

2022

E3S Web Conf.

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Single motherhood has been well documented to have adverse impacts on financial wellbeing and they are prone to fall into poverty trap. In Malaysia, the term single mother generally refers to widowed and divorced mothers. Income earned from employment is one of the main sources of livelihood for single mothers, which is sometimes supplemented by child support and other transfers such as pension, welfare assistance, tithe (zakat) and hands out. The types of employment held by low income single mothers are rather limited due to their level of educational attainment, locality, mobility and childcare responsibility. These barriers seem to restrict their work choices and they have to find ways around it, usually by entering informal employment or self-employment sectors. This study discusses employment characteristics of single mothers from the lowest quantile of the society. It is important to explore this issue as these mothers are likely raising their children in constant hardship. This study employs a qualitative quest to gain a deeper understanding of this issue. The respondents of this study come from different states in Peninsular Malaysia. Upon completion of this study, we could suggest that precarious employment of single mothers posed a real threat for the wellbeing of their family. Those involved in informal sectors are the most vulnerable. Without a proper employment contract as in formal sectors, they have no work benefits or protection against unforeseen circumstances. Insufficient and irregular income worry them endlessly as the survival of their family is at stake. Moreover, worries about financial situations could also lead to other health concerns. The findings of this study emphasize the urgency of government intervention that is well planned and targeted. The society at large should also be more sensitive and empathetic towards single mothers and their children. Indeed, children living in poverty should not be tolerated at all.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precarious Employment amongst Low Income Single Mothers in Malaysia: The Implications on Family Wellbeing

Nor

2022

E3S Web Conf.

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“…The screening tools used most commonly, have been developed in several countries specifically for elderly people, are Australian Nutrition Screening Initiative (ANSI) [12], Ayrshire Nutrition Screening Tool (ANST) [13], Canadian Nutrition Screening Tool (CNST) [14], Chinese Nutrition Screen (CNS) [15], Council of Nutrition Appetite Questionnaire (CNAQ ) [16], Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire (SNAQ ) [16], Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (SNAQ ) [17], Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire for the Residential Care (SNAQ RC) [18], Malaysian Tool (MT) [19], Malnutrition Risk Screening Tool-Hospital (MRSTH) [20], Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) [21], Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF) [22], Minimal Eating Observation and Nutrition Form Version II (MEONF-II) [23], Nursing Nutrition Screening Assessment (NNSA) [24], Nursing Nutritional Assessment (NNA) [25], Nutrition Screening Initiative (NSI "DETERMINE") [26], Nutritional Form for the Elderly (NUFFE) [27], Nutritional Risk Assessment Tool (NRAT) [28], Seniors in the Community Version I (SCREEN I) [29], Seniors in the Community Version II (SCREEN II) [30], South African Screening Tool (SAST) [31], The Burton Score (TBS) [32] and Geriatric Nutrition Risk Index (GNRI-NRI) [33] ( Table 1). All of them contain several domains, and the parameters included most frequently are those concerning anthropometry, dietary intake, and clinical condition.…”

Section: Nutritional Screening Tools Available For Elderly Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to have the appropriate arguments for using one or other of the screening methods, the main psychometric parameters that should be considered are the sensitivity and specificity of the test. Among the selected tools the sensitivities ranged from 0.32 for the ANSI [34] to 99% for the MNA [22] and the specificities of the tools ranged from 0.38% for the SCREEN I [29] to 0.96% for the MRSTH [20]. Only for five of these instruments Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, as a combined measure of sensitivity and specificity, has been informed [16,17,22,29,30].…”

Section: Nutritional Screening Tools Available For Elderly Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Undernutrition Risk Assessment in Elderly People: Available Tools in Clinical Practice

Sospedra¹,

Norte²,

Martínez-Sanz³

et al. 2019

Nutrition in Health and Disease - Our Challenges Now and Forthcoming Time

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Undernutrition is a public health problem all over the world. More than 30 million people are currently affected by undernutrition in Europe, mainly hospitalized or elderly people. Undernutrition has several medical consequences and in the elderly can be associated with adverse clinical symptoms, contributing to frailty, morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality. These medical situations highlight the importance of an early detection and diagnosis, the objective being to prevent or treat undernutrition. This is why the implementation of a complete nutritional assessment in clinical practice is important. Nutritional screenings are essential tools to identify patients that will likely benefit from nutrition therapy. There are currently several screening methods to identify nutritional risk or malnutrition. However, the lack of a standard has aroused controversy about the best tool to use. Our objective is to describe the screening tools available for the elderly.

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“…In many cases, the single mothers have to shoulder most of the responsibilities of caring for the children that may cause them to stress out and affect their life satisfaction in particular when they earn a little [6]. In addition, single mothers are more likely to be employed in low paid job which is probably due to their education level [13]. Basically, education is a gateway to job opportunity and sufficient income and the lack of it may deteriorate household economic situation [16].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

When poverty knocks on the door: Sharing the story of low income single mothers in Kelantan

Nor¹,

Mohamad²,

Vellymalay³

2019

International Journal of Engineering Sciences

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Single mother households are often associated with financial hardships as they have lost financial support from the spouse upon divorce. This preliminary study presents the story of hardships among 12 selected single mothers with children in Kelantan. A survey questions has been distributed and the descriptive data has been collected and analyzed with their consent. We find that demographic and socio-economic factors play important roles in the financial wellbeing of the respondents whereby the low education attainment seems to cause the respondents to have low paying jobs exacerbated by more than average number of children in the households and an absence or irregularity of child support payments from their former husband. Hence, the findings further highlight the additional burden faced by the single mothers due to unavailability child support payment for various reasons. It is important to note that the income of all of our respondents fall under the minimum wage of the country therefore they are considered poor and very poor from per capita point of view. Poverty and hardships come hand in hand therefore public assistance in the form of cash and housing arrangements have somehow reduced the burden of single mothers in this study. Consequently, we believe that this brief study has invoke more questions that warrant further studies on many topics involving single mother households such as child support, child poverty and financial and economic wellbeing of single mothers households in Malaysia. So where do we start?

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Nutritional status and health profile among single mothers in Malaysia

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Precarious Employment amongst Low Income Single Mothers in Malaysia: The Implications on Family Wellbeing

Precarious Employment amongst Low Income Single Mothers in Malaysia: The Implications on Family Wellbeing

Undernutrition Risk Assessment in Elderly People: Available Tools in Clinical Practice

When poverty knocks on the door: Sharing the story of low income single mothers in Kelantan

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