Association between functional fitness and quality of life of elderly participants of a program of physical activity of Curitiba, Brazil

Abstract

With the constant increase of the elderly population becomes necessary the discussion about the aspects related to the functional fitness, once this can interfere in the healthy aging. The objective of this paper was verifying the association of functional fitness with a quality of life in 1737 elderly women participating in a program of physical activity in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; was applied the Sociodemographic Questionnaire, the short version of International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), and the questionnaires of quality of life WHOQOL-BREF and OLD. Also, was applied the battery of tests of functional fitness Senior Fitness Test. Descriptive analysis of the variables and the ordinal logistic regression model was used to verify the associations between the variables of functional fitness and the domains of quality of life by means of software STATA 13.0 MP, with the significance of p<0,05. The results indicated that elderly with adequate functional fitness showed more likely to be in the higher third of quality of life variables and their domains in the assessment of WHOQOL-BREF (ranging between 1,21 to 1,49) and WHOQOL-OLD (ranging between 1,18 to 1,49). The results pointed out that better functional fitness presents is positively associated with a perception positive of quality of life and their domains in the elderly women.