Qualidade de vida e solidão em idosos residentes em lar

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The unquestionable reality of demographic upheavals that began in the last century and that lets us observe an increasingly aging population, highlights the importance of ensuring the elderly not only a higher life expectancy, but also a good quality of life, caring for developing means to better meet the difficulties of the growing number of the elderly. AIM: In this sense, it has become imperative to focus the study on the analysis of the relationshipbetween sociodemographic variables and aspects related to the institutionalization and loneliness and Quality of Life in institutionalized elderly people. METHODS: A descriptive-correlational study has been outlined, using an independent sample of 47 elderly residents of a retirement home and the method for data collection was an elaborated protocol consisting of: a questionnaire on sociodemographic data and variables related to institutionalization; Quality of Life Scale (WHO) WHOQOL-Bref (Sierra et al., 2006) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Neto, 1989). RESULTS: It was observed that the groupof elderly studied consists mainly of women, widowed or single, aged between 72 and 96 years, often and of primary education, reformed. CONCLUSION: The solitude and the Quality of Life are negative and strongly correlated. With regard to demographic factors, only visits in the home, outputs frequency relationships in the home and output periods is that are significant differences between groups.