Overview of Rheumatic Diseases in the Elderly: The FIBRA Study

• Autor(a) principal: Torres, Sarina Francescato
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Neri, Anita Liberalesso, Borim, Flávia Silva Arbex
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: PAJAR - Pan American Journal of Aging Research
• Texto Completo: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/pajar/article/view/23765
• topic: Rheumatic diseases; Osteoarthritis; Arthritis; Elderly; Epidemiology.; Doenças reumáticas; Osteoartrite; Artrite; Idoso; Prevalência.

Introduction: The high prevalence of rheumatic diseases and the countless adverse effects caused in the individual make them a great challenge forgovernments and healthcare systems worldwide. Objective: To assess the prevalence of rheumatic diseases in the elderly and their relationship with somebiopsychosocial variables. Method: This is a cross-sectional population-based study whose data were obtained from the FIBRA Study electronic database,developed in the 2008-2009 period and involving 2,593 individuals older than 65 years who lived in urban areas. Results: We found that rheumaticdiseases have a prevalence of 43.5% in the elderly sample, with mean age of 72.3 years old and predominance of females. The biopsychosocial variablesmore strongly associated with rheumatic diseases were: chronic diseases (52.1%); depressive symptoms (56.7%); regular (48.5%), poor or very poor (52.3%) health self-evaluation; report of one (49.7%) or more (62.7%) cases of falls; and obesity (57.0%). Conclusion: We found a high prevalence of rheumatic diseases in the elderly population and a close relationship of these with the individual’s biopsychosocial variables, and given the world population ageing, the scenario is worsened in the public healthcare and thus strategies for prevention and early treatment of these diseases should be implemented urgently.