Qualidade de vida de idosos com diabetes mellitus.

Abstract

The ability of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) of causing diverse and complex changes in the health of seniors throughout daily life can significantly affect the quality of life (QOL). The relevance of associating DM in the context of aging focuses on the need to know which dimensions of QOL the disease affects. In this sense, the aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of life of seniors’ patients with DM. This is a cross-sectional observational field research with a quantitative approach, performed in a Family Basic Health Units of Cuité - PB, with 51 seniors diabetics selected according to the inclusion criteria. After approval of the research by the Federal University of Campina Grande Ethics Committee (CEP/UFCG) in opinion nº. 555 231, data were collected using questionnaires B -PAID, WHOQOL-Old and sociodemographic. The results indicated seniors with an average age of 71, mostly female, married, illiterate and with income less than or equal to the minimum wage. According to the total score of B -PAID, 49% of the seniors had emotional distress; and as the analysis of its dimensions, there was a significant difference only between the comparison of the "problems related to social support" and "marital status " (p-value = 0.003). Based on WHOQOL-OLD, there was a good overall perception of the seniors in all domains, which indicates a good QOL. However, we identified an interesting controversy in the result, because, although 49 % of participants demonstrated emotional distress in instrument B-PAID and in the WHOQOL-Old, the scores were high in all facets. Thus, it is necessary a greater effort from the Family Health Care Team in partnership with the City Management to promote a better QOL for seniors diabetics , seeking to strengthen and optimize the assumptions of “Hiperdia” program, with effective therapeutic monitoring and strengthened health education.