Frailty, depressive symptoms and quality of life: a study with elderly caregivers

Abstract

Frailty syndrome and depressive symptoms can be considered important public health issues due to high prevalence among older adults and to the negative effects on the well-being of affected individuals. Therefore, through early identification of such conditions, interventions can be planned in order to reduce expenditure with health services and improve the quality of life of these individuals. Objective: Analyze the relationship between frailty, depressive symptoms, and quality of life of older adults' elder caregivers. Method: Descriptive, correlational, and transversal study. This study will develop from the data belonging to the main study electronic database. The study sample will be composed of all older adults from the database who attend the following inclusion criteria: be the primary caregiver of another older adult; dwell in the same residence as the assisted older adult. The adopted exclusion criterion consists of older adults who do not present complete data on frailty, depressive symptoms, cognition, and quality of life. Data regarding the following instruments will be analyzed: Elder caregiver characterization, Mini-Mental State Examination, Geriatric Depression Scale, Short Form 6 Dimensions, Linda Fried's Frailty Criteria (adapted), Katz Index for basic activities of daily living, and the Scale for instrumental activities of daily living. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test will be used to verify adherence to the variables normal distribution and to define the use of parametric (in case of normality) or non-parametric tests (in case of non-normality of data). The significance level of the statistic test will be p-value d 0,05. (AU)