ALEXANDRINO, Arthur.
Resumen:
Objective: To know the social representations about old age built by university students. Method: Descriptive study with a qualitative approach, subsidized by Serge Moscovici's Theory of Social Representations, conduced with 277 university students randomly classified. The data were collected in the months of December 2019 and March 2020 through a sociodemographic-academic questionnaire and the Free Word Association Test, with the inducing term "old age". The data were organized and processed in the IBM SPSS software for descriptive statistical analysis, and in the EVOC software to calculate the intermediate and weighted average frequency of occurrence of each evoked word, structuring the central and peripheral nucleus of social representations. Results: There is a predominance of female university students, aged between 20 and 29 years old, color/race mixed, single, with an average family income of R$ 2,023.90, with a greater representation of the students of the Bachelor of Pharmacy course and average of 4.66 periods taken. At the Central Nucleus, the elements grandparents, tiredness, rest, illness, experience, fragility, health and terminality were identified. In the Peripheral Nucleus, the elements white hair, forgetfulness, limitations, financial stability, unconcern, happiness, time, satisfaction, travel and abandonment were identified. Old age had multiple meanings for university students, showing evocations linked to both a positive dimension and a negative perspective. Conclusion: The evocations circumscribed in the peripheral nucleus of social representations give rise to reflections, discussions and resignifications of university students who now represent society in general. It is suggested that new research on social representations about old age be developed with other segments of the population, in order to enable a plurality of world views on this phenomenon and to stimulate the strategic efficiency of comprehensive care for the elderly.
