Qualidade de vida de idosos e participação em atividades educativas grupais.

Abstract

The group educational activities may contribute to the quality of life of seniors. In turn, the spatial quality of life may reveal clusters, given their relationship with environmental factors, economic, social, cultural and health. This study aimed to characterize the elderly and their participation in group educational activities and check the health and sociodemographic factors associated with non-participation in group educational activities, to compare the scores of quality of life among the elderly and non-participatory and participatory identify clusters of smaller scores of quality of life related to participation in activities or not. This is a study of household survey cross-sectional observational and comparative study conducted with 2142 elderly. Data were collected through semi-structured instrument and the quality of life measured by WHOQOL-BREF and WHOQOL-OLD. For the data analysis used the SPSS software, MapInfo Professional and TerraView. We performed descriptive analysis, chi-square and Student t test (&#945;=0.10) and logistic regression (&#945;=0.05). For the third objective was divided into two groups matched by sex and age: the elderly non-participatory and participatory, we used the Student t test (&#945;=0.05). The mapping of the lower scores of quality of life was obtained by kernel. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee on Human Research of UFTM, Protocol No. 897. Most seniors did not participate in group educational activities (88.3%) for participatory activity is predominantly related to hypertension (44.5%). In both groups, participatory and non participatory, the largest percentage were female (67.7%, 61.8%, respectively), 60&#9500;70 years (51.4%, 45.7%, respectively), married (53.4%, 48.2%, respectively), were living with children (40.2%, 32.4%, respectively) and monthly income of a minimum wage (55%, 55.1%, respectively). The elderly showed mostly a participatory 1&#9500;4 years of study (40.6%) and non-participatory, 4&#9500;8 (33.5%). Among the participatory observed predominance of 7&#9500;10 morbidities (33.9%) and for non-participatory, 4&#9500;7 (33.3%). In both groups the highest percentage was for a 1&#9500;3 functional disabilities. The age group 80 years and older was associated with increased odds of non-participation in group educational activities (&#946;=1.89). The comparison between groups showed that the elderly had lower scores participatory quality of life in the social relationships domain (p=0.037) and the facets: sensory functioning (p=0.01), autonomy (p<0.001), activities past, present and future (p=0.003) and social participation (p=0.007). Older people participatory-located in the northeast region of the municipality and the nonparticipatory in the south. There were major clusters of lower scores of quality of life in the outskirts of the city, coinciding with areas of elderly participatory and non participatory. These data can support the implementation of public health efforts, according to regional specificities. The expansion of group educational activities can promote the improvement of quality of life for seniors.