Perceived barriers to regular physical activity in elderly

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira,Jacilene Guedes de
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: França,Sabrina Pereira de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Geriatrics, Gerontology and Aging (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ggaging.com/details/91
• topic: Motor activity; Aged; Primary health care.

<p><b>OBJECTIVE:</b> To identify the barriers to the practice of regular physical activity in elderly people registered in Family Health Units in the city of Vitoria de Santo Ant&atilde;o, Pernambuco, Brazil.<br> <b>METHODS:</b> The sample consisted of 88 elderly enrolled in eight FHU. Data collection was conducted through questionnaires to obtain general characteristics, comorbidities, risk factors, health perception and barriers to the practice of regular physical activity. For data analysis we used the descriptive analysis and the chi-square test was adopted with p&lt;0.05.<br> <b>RESULTS:</b> The mean age of the elderly was 68.8±6.01 years and more than half of the sample was composed of women (86.4%). Of the elderly registered in the Family Health Units, 62.5% do not perform regular physical activity and the most perceived barriers were: "I have a disease" and "without free time". The inactive behavior of the elderly was associated with four barriers: "inadequate facilities", "fear of falling", "I need to relax" and "got lazy".<br> <b>CONCLUSION:</b> The majority of the elderly population (62.5%) that were assessed in the Family Health Units do not perform physical activity regularly and perceives the presence of disease and not having available free time as the main barriers.</p>