Sofrimento mental em idosos institucionalizados: uma abordagem das dimensões que o acometem.

Abstract

In Brazil and in the world the aging population is increasingly being noticed in current days. With the demographic succession are happening several changes related to the health of the elderly making it more fragile and dependent on integral care. However, with the reduced presence of family members and descendants to care for also increasing the demand for long-term institutions-ILPs. In this sense, taking into consideration the feelings experienced by the elderly in this process of transition, and the risk of developing a mental suffering, being the depression the mental disorder is more common in individuals in the third age, the study had as objective to analyze the mental suffering, its dimensions and the depressive level in institutionalized elderly in the city of Cajazeiras-PB. It is a field survey of descriptive quantiqualitativo imprint, who used as instruments of data collection; structured interview and application of the Geriatric Depression Scale-GDS. With the results, we noticed a greater number of women participants in the research and the predominance of elderly patients with ages between 70 and 79 years old, unmarried, who lived in long- term institutions between one and two years. It was evidenced through the application of the geriatric depression scale that most of the elderly presents normal psychological framework, there is an increased frequency of results with scores between 4-7. It was identified that there were similarities regarding the responses related to the thought of the elderly. It was noted that the majority of the participants of the study does not deal with routine activities to stimulate the mind and that the visit of relatives are few which ultimately further compromise the mental health of the elderly. With the results of the survey will be possible direct actions of mental health in the EU institutions, as well as to identify and, if necessary, intervene in the possible factors that lead the institutionalized elderly to develop a mental suffering, besides promoting more studies in this area.