Abstract

MILLAN MENDEZ, Israel E.. Assessment of the capability and perception of self-care of elderly in community. Rev Cubana Enfermer [online]. 2010, vol.26, n.4, pp.202-234. ISSN 0864-0319.

To measure health in the old patient is complex, because it is to measure the resultant of diverse variables of biological, psychological and social character, for what the health in old man should be measured in correspondence with their functional state. Motivated for this reason was carried out a traverse descriptive study in the municipality Holguin, with the objective of evaluating the capacity and perception of self-care of the old men in the community. Of an universe of 354 elderly people of 3 clinics, 195 were selected, to which were applied an Instrument designed to the effect to measure their level of self-care. The results indicated that 50.5% of the men and 43.3% of the women don't their care appropriately, a deficit of cognitive-perceptive self-care exists in 46.7%, 9.8% has partial deficit and 5.6% total deficit. Of the 121 patients whose level of self-care is inadequate, 75.2% is independent and 63.6% perceives its seemingly healthy state of health, being concluded that nevertheless the great majority of the studied old men to be independent to carry out the activities of the daily life, they don't develop its capacities of self-care appropriately, for what the independent functional degree is a necessary but not enough condition for a good self-care, the elderly people that perceive some risk for its health take care more than those that are perceived healthy. The applied instrument defines the activity of self-care in the study patients, being recommended its introduction in the geriatric evaluation in the Primary Attention of Health.

Keywords : ELDERLY PEOPLE; SELF-CARE CAPACITY; SELF-CARE PERCEPTION; SELF-CARE DEFICIT; GERIATRIC EVALUATION; FUNCTIONAL STATE.

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