Evaluation of Vitamin D Levels in Home Care Patients

Abstract

Objective: Vitamin D deficiency has become an epidemic for all age groups in the world. This research aims to evaluate the vitamin D deficiency in home care patients and related lifestyle reasons. Methods: This research included Home Care patients registered to Istanbul Sisli Hamidiye Etfal Training and Research Hospital between January 2015 - February 2016. After getting the patients' vitamin D records retrospectively, we have inquired patients if they had regular exposure to sunlight, whether they had a history of fracture or osteoporosis, and other related lifestyle habits. D vitamin deficiency were grouped as normal (>30ng/ml), insufficiency (20-30ng/ml), deficiency (lower than 20ng/ml), and severe deficiency (lower than <10ng/ml). The data was evaluated with SPSS 20.0 program, using frequencies, chi-square, and T-tests. Results: A total of 232 patients were included in this study. There were 160 (69%) women and 72 (31%) men. Vitamin D insufficiency was found in 11.2% (n=26), and vitamin D deficiency in 70.3% (n=163). 70.1% (n=96) of 137 patients who answered the questions were female and 29.9% (n=41) were male. 86.1% of them (n=118) did not benefit from sunlight, 63.5% (n=87) had not received vitamin D treatment before. Vitamin D deficiency was detected in 79.3% (n=69) of those who did not receive vitamin D treatment, and a significant relationship was found between them. Conclusions: Our study found that most home care patients had low Vitamin D levels, did not have regular exposure to sunlight, and did not exercise regularly. Vitamin D replacement is vital in home-care patients as vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of osteoporosis, falls, and fractures.