Aging and vulnerability: an analysis of 1,062 elderly persons

Abstract Objective: To analyze the vulnerability of non-institutionalized elderly persons. Method: A cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study was carried out using data of the City Health Department of Palmas, Paraná, Brazil, and the Vulnerable Elders Survey (VES-13) instrument. The questionnaires of people aged over 60 years who had answered the VES-13 questionnaire between January 2016 and December 2017 were included. The quantitative data were analyzed by the Student’s T-Test and the categorical data by the Chi-square and Fisher’s Exact Test. The correlation between the quantitative variables was performed by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: A total of 1,062 questionnaires were analyzed, of which 57.3% were female, with a mean age 69 (±7.8) years. In total 427 individuals (40.2%) were vulnerable and 635 (59.8%) were not vulnerable according to VES-13 score. A total of 635 (59.8%) elderly persons were classified as robust, 176 (16.6%) as at risk of frailty and 251 (23.6%) as frail. Women and those over 75 years were more vulnerable (p