Prevalence of systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus self-reported by elderly
International Journal of Development Research
Prevalence of systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus self-reported by elderly
Received 23rd May, 2017; Received in revised form 17th June, 2017; Accepted 22nd July, 2017; Published online 30th August, 2017
Copyright©2017, Luana Caroline Gaviraghi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence of systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus self-reported by elderly residing in an urban area of a municipality in the northwestern region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul/Brazil. A population-based cross-sectional study, with 424 elderly, with the application of a questionnaire containing socio-economic, demographic and behavioral variables, morbidities, use of medicaments and health services, and functional capacity evaluation. The prevalence of systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus was 67.5% and 20.5% respectively, being that 79.3% of the elderly self-reported both. It was verified that increased pressoric levels and perception of regular or bad health presented statistically significant differences between hypertensive and diabetic patients. The occurrence of arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus among elderly has been kept unchanged, maybe for the lack of effectiveness or insufficiency of health programs intended to this population. This indicates the need to re-evaluate the offer and access to public health services to elderly, and also the incentive of actions for health promotion and aggravation prevention.
