Relação entre a fragilidade, autopercepção de saúde e medo de quedas de idosos longevos

Abstract

Fragility is a multidimensional syndrome that involves a complex interaction of biological, psychological and social factors that culminates in a state of greater vulnerability, together with the greater risk of adverse clinical outcomes such as delirium, functional decline, impaired mobility, falls, social withdrawal, increased morbidity and mortality and hospitalization. The objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between frailty, self-perception of health and fear of falls of elderly people. This is an observational, descriptive, quantitative and cross-sectional analytical study. Data on fragility measures, subjective health assessment and fall efficacy scale were collected using structured and validated forms. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences - IBM 22.0 software was used to analyze the data. For the inferential analyzes, the Chi-square test was used. The significance level stipulated for the study was p≤0.05. The results allow us to infer that the fragility is high in elderly people who are attended at the Catholic University Hospital of Brasília, administered by the Heart Institute of the Federal District (ICDF). All were classified as fragile and pre-fragile, none being rated as robust. There is a relation of the fragility of these with the fear of falls and with the age group. The variable sex has no relation with any variable studied. Regarding health perception (self-reported), the long-lived elderly evaluated perceived their health as regular and good, the great majority as good, and did not differ in relation to the age group. Thus we conclude that our sample presents high levels of fragility and that the more fragile, the greater the fear of falling. However, although they have high levels of fragility, they evaluate their health as good.