Evaluation of the anxiety, depression and self-esteem levels of the elderly with respiratory pathology

Abstract

Context: Anxiety, depression and low self-esteem are quite common in old people who have respiratory disease. The respiratory rehabilitation programs can reduce these psycho-emotional changes. Objective study: knowing the levels of anxiety, depression and self-esteem of old people with respiratory disease, followed by the Cova da Beira Hospital Centre as well as their social support networks. It was also analyzed the influence of gender, age, education and place of residence, with scores of anxiety, depression and self-esteem as well as the relationship between them. Methods: It is an exploratory study, descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional study, of quantitative trait, consisting of a sample of 74 old people selected by convenience. In the collecting of the data a sociodemographic questionnaire was applied, using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Results and Conclusions: The prevalence of anxiety in old people was higher than the depression with satisfactory values of global self-esteem. The informal support was the most frequent. Gender statistically influenced anxiety, and education, depression and self-esteem. It was obtained significant correlations between the scores of anxiety, depression and self-esteem. It was concluded that the assessment and intervention to psychological component level can enable a significant reduction of psycho-emotional changes that was found.

Keywords

• idosos
• patologia respiratória
• ansiedade
• depressão e autoestima