Introduction:

Self-management as a healthy behavior and age-specific physical capacity are little explored, but may lead to lifestyle changes in older adults with chronic disease.

Objective:

To characterize the relationship between self-management practice and the level of dependence in older adults with chronic disease.

Methods:

Descriptive, correlational and longitudinal study carried out from July to November 2020. The population was made up of 105 older adults with chronic disease who are part of associations of older adults from Ibagué, Colombia. Measurement was done using the Partners in Health scale, while the physical capacity involved the Barthel index. Descriptive analysis, Pearson's correlation test, and a linear regression model were used for the analysis.

Results:

Women and men represented 60% and 40% of the participants, respectively. They were found to present chronic diseases: high arterial hypertension (60.95%) diabetes mellitus (10.47%) chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (6.66%). Within the self-management capacity, adherence presented the highest average score (71.30), while physical capacity was found in most of the participants in mild dependence and independence; this led to the presence of a positive correlation between these two aspects. For each additional point in the Barthel test, there is an increase of 0.27 in the self-management index (p = 0.003).

Conclusions:

The practice of self-management is found to be related to the physical capacity of older adults with chronic disease, especially with respect to the adherence behavior. Other chronic diseases were arthritis and chronic renal failure.

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