Quality of Life of Elderly Practicing Physical Exercises: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The present study quantitative, comparative and cross-sectional aimed to compare the quality of life of elderly people who practice physical activity according to sex, neighborhood and age range. 79 elderly people were surveyed for convenience, of both sexes were surveyed. The EUROHIS-QOL protocol, that assesses quality of life, was used as an instrument for data collection. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, verifying means, standard deviation, using the SPSS 22.0 program. For data comparison, Student's t test was used and p≤0.05 was adopted as significant. As a result, when compared by age group, an average score of lower quality of life in the elderly over 70 years old was found (p=0.009). When compared by neighborhood, there was a statistically significant difference for the next questions. Q1: how do you assess your quality of life (p=0.02); Q2: health satisfaction (p=0.01); Q3: enough energy for your daily life (p=0.001); satisfaction with their ability to perform their day-to-day activities (p=0.04); satisfaction with their personal relationships (p=0.004) and satisfaction with the conditions of the place where they live (p=0.01). Regarding the age range, there was a difference for questions regarding health satisfaction (p=0.02), ability to perform day-to-day activities and sufficient energy for day-to-day life (p=0.04). The largest number of variables that showed a significant difference was in the questions related to the neighborhood where he lives. It was also identified that in the general context, the elderly in the research had a positive perception of quality of life.