Influência da fragilidade na presença de sintomas depressivos de pessoas idosas em contexto de alta vulnerabilidade social

Abstract

With advancing age, the elderly person becomes more susceptible to frailty syndrome and depression. Depressive symptoms such as inactivity and inappetence can lead to a decrease in muscle mass, strength and physical activity - which are frailty criteria. This research aimed to identify an association between depression and frailty in a sample of 122 elderly people treated at Family Health Units (USF) in the city of São Carlos. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study based on the quantitative research method. The instruments used for data collection were: Questionnaire for the Sociodemographic Characterization of the Elderly, the Frailty Assessment Scale and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The data obtained were entered into a database using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows program to perform descriptive, comparative (Pearson's Chi-Square and Kruskal-Wallis Test) and correlational analysis (Spearman's Correlational Analysis). The elderly had a mean age of 69.93 years (Md=70.00; SD=6.92), 3.05 years of schooling (Md=3.00; SD=2.92), were predominantly female (54.9%, n=67), married (92.6%, n=113), brown (48.4%, n=59) and retired (79.5%, n=97). Individual and family incomes were less than 1.3 and 2.4 times the minimum wage, respectively. As for frailty, 42 were frail (34.4%), 75 were pre-frail (61.5%) and only 5 were robust (4.1%). The prevalence of depressive symptoms in the sample was 38.5% (n=47), with 4.1% (n=5) having severe depressive symptoms and 34.4% (n=42) having mild depressive symptoms. In the frail group, the mean total depression score was 6.67 points (Md=7.00; SD=3.24), in the pre-frail group it was 4.00 points (Md=3.00; SD= 2.81) and the non-frail group was 2.40 points (Md=2.00; SD=2.07). The difference in the means of the groups was significant (X²=19.508; gl=2; p=0.000). Corroborating this, the correlation analysis between the number of depressive symptoms and the frailty score was significant, of moderate magnitude and directly proportional (rho=0.484, p=0.000). It is concluded that more frail elderly people have a greater number of depressive symptoms.