Quality of life of hypertensive and diabetic elderly in an outpatient clinic

Abstract

Model of study: The study design was a populational, cross-sectional and descriptive. Objective: To evaluate the quality of life of high blood pressure and diabetic elderly outpatients of a teaching hospital in the interior of Sao Paulo State, Brazil. Methodology: The study was done in a Geriatrics Outpatient Service in São José do Rio Preto, involved 62 elderly patients with high blood pressure and/or diabetes mellitus treated in the period from December 2009 to February 2010. The data were collected with the WHOQOL-OLD, analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, with tests Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric and Pearson's correlation; the level of significance was set to a value of p<0.05. Results: A total of 38 elderly patients studied (61.3%) have high blood pressure, and 23 (37.1%) were diabetics. The age was 67±7 (mean, SD). Characteristics of the sample studied were: female (58.1%), elementary school (87.1%), married status (56.4%), professions linked to the sector of services (56.4%), the income of 1 minimum wage (66.1%) and living with the spouse (58.1%). The highest median score (75.0) was found in the facets "Past, present and future" "Activities", "Social participation", "Death and dying" and "Intimacy". The facet "Autonomy" showed the lowest scoring of 62.5. The elderly with high blood pressure had a lower score compared to patients with diabetes in "Sensory Functioning" facet (62.17 versus 73.64, respectively). Conclusion: The elderly showed a lower quality of life in the "Autonomy" and best quality for facets: "Past, present and future", "Activities", "Social participation", "Death and dying" and "Intimacy". There was not difference in the quality of life among elderly with diabetes and high blood pressure patients, except for a tendency to lower "Sensory Functioning" facet in high blood pressure patients