Quality of life of elderly people living in a municipality with rural characteristics in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Abstract Objective: to describe the quality of life of elderly residents of a rural municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Methods: a cross-sectional, descriptive study of a population of elderly persons was performed. Systematic probabilistic sampling was carried out. The sample was composed of 100 elderly persons, of whom 67 were female and 33 were male. Two questionnaires were used to collect the data, a sociodemographic and sample characterization survey, and the WHOQOL-BREF, in order to evaluate quality of life. The normality of the data was verified by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and analysis of mean and standard deviation was performed. Absolute and relative frequencies, Student T-test and Pearson correlation were also performed. Results: Quality of life in the physical domain was negatively impacted for both genders, whereas in the social relationships domain a good evaluation was identified, without significant difference between genders. The correlation of the WHOQOL-BREF domains with the age, weight and height of the women demonstrated, although weak, a positive and direct association in quality of life between environment and weight (r=0.277, p=0.024). When only men were evaluated, a strong inverse association with physical domain and age was found (r=0.725, p<0.001) as well as an inverse association of psychological domain with age (r=0.371, p=0.033). The psychological domain presented a positive association with BMI (r=0.36, p=0.039). Conclusion: It was concluded that elderly persons living in a rural environment who participated in this study had a good quality of life.

摘要 研究目的：描述南里奥格兰德州某农村市镇老年居民的生活质量。方法：本研究为针对老年人群的横断面描述性研究，采用系统概率抽样方法。最终纳入100名老年受试者，其中女性67名，男性33名。研究采用两份问卷收集数据：其一为社会人口学及样本特征调查问卷，其二为世界卫生组织生活质量测定简表（WHOQOL-BREF），用于评估生活质量。数据正态性采用柯尔莫哥洛夫-斯米尔诺夫（Kolmogorov-Smirnov）检验进行验证，并开展均值与标准差分析；同时采用绝对频数与相对频数、t检验（Student T-test）及皮尔逊（Pearson）相关分析进行统计处理。结果：两类性别受试者的生理领域生活质量均受到负面影响；而社会关系领域评分良好，且性别间无显著差异。针对女性受试者的分析显示，WHOQOL-BREF各领域与年龄、体重、身高的相关性虽较弱，但环境领域与体重呈显著正相关（r=0.277，P=0.024）。仅针对男性受试者的分析则发现，生理领域与年龄呈较强的负相关（r=0.725，P<0.001），心理领域与年龄亦呈负相关（r=0.371，P=0.033）；此外心理领域与体质量指数（BMI，Body Mass Index）呈正相关（r=0.36，P=0.039）。结论：本研究纳入的居住于农村环境的老年人群整体生活质量良好。