Alcoolismo e envelhecimento: percepção de idosos usuários de um Centro de Atenção Psicossocial.

Abstract

The population's aging process is a worldwide phenomenon, characterized as an inherent process to the human being happening along with anatomical and functional changes. Associated with natural changes due to aging, other social and familial factors make seniors vulnerable and more likely to increasing unhealthy habits such as excessive consumption of alcohol and other substances. Thus, alcoholism among the elderly has become a public health problem, causing financial impact on public resources as well as on familial budget and structure. Thus, there is a need to develop preventive policies directed to this population in order to reduce alcohol consumption among the elderly. Thus, the present study aimed to analyze the perception of elderly users of a Psychosocial Care Center regarding alcohol consumption. Three elderly had participation on this study. A semi-structured interview plan was used as a data collecting tool, having objective questions that sought to outline the sociodemographic profile of the participants, and subjective questions that aimed to capture the perception of the elderly surveyed concerning the use of alcohol and the difficulties regarding treatment. Data analysis was performed using the qualitative analysis technique proposed by Minayo (2008). The data obtained show that elderly users of alcohol are mostly men with low education and social level, corroborating what studies have been pointing out, that men consume more alcohol than women. It was also noticed that the most recurrent alcoholic beverage among participants was "cachaca", which is a highly alcoholic, low cost drink, accessible to the population in general, including the families of lower socioeconomic status. It was also found that these people made frequent use of alcoholic beverages, having an average of five glasses per day. Participants said they had started using alcohol during youth, showing that with the passage of time addiction to alcoholism has been developed. Now pertaining to the damage that alcohol has caused in the lives of the elderly, it was observed that there are problems at work, finances, family and health, in addition to the psychological and social difficulties. Seniors reported that there was no difficulty in adhering to the treatment, pointing out at times that it had been important in the reduction of alcohol use, which improved the quality of life. But it was observed that health services still have some difficulties regarding the physical structure and the lack of professionals to offer a quality service to users, in order to maintain their adherence to treatment. Having this in mind, it is clear the need for health actions and prevention policies and planned intervention, using an approach integrated to social, psychological and biological factors, in order to decrease alcohol misuse among the elderly, as well as to prevent harms to health.