Qualidade de vida e sintomas de ansiedade e depressão em idosas com e sem dor musculoesquelética crônica

Abstract

With the increase in life expectancy there is a higher prevalence of chronic diseases and functional limitations that are common in aging. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD’s) are in the group of chronic diseases that most affect the elderly, being characterized by pain and decrease in function. When associated with pain these disorders are among the most disabling diseases and are associated with considerable functional, psychological and social limitations. To analyze the impact of musculoskeletal diseases is important to measure the problems associated with them, like pain, emotional factors and quality of life. Therefore, the goals of this study are to measure the levels of anxiety and depression symptoms and quality of life in elderly women with chronic musculoskeletal pain and compare them with elderly women without pain, and to measure the influence of pain’s intensity in these variables. This was a cross-sectional study among women who were 60 years old or older, who were members of mothers' clubs in the city of Caxias do Sul, Brazil. The elderly women were separated into two groups, group G1 consisted of women with chronic musculoskeletal pain for over three months and group G2 consisted of women with no musculoskeletal pain for over three months.To measure anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, quality of life and pain intensity the following instruments were used, respectively: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI); Beck Depression Inventory- II (BDI-II); WHOQOL-bref; and visual analogue scale (VAS). 178 elderly women participated on this research, of which four were excluded since they did not meet all the inclusion criteria. Of the 174 remaining, 95 were included in G1 and 79 in G2. The mean age was 70 years old in G1 and 70,3 years old in G2. The G1 group showed higher levels of anxiety symptoms (p<0,001) and depression symptoms (p<0,001) and worse quality of life in all domains of WHOQOL-BREF (p<0,05) when compared with group G2. The pain intensity was negatively correlated with the levels of anxiety symptoms (p<0,001) and the physical domain of the WHOQOL-BREF (p <0.05). Therefore, it is concluded that chronic musculoskeletal pain is frequent in the elderly and is associated with higher incidence of depressive and anxiety symptoms, and it also affects negatively the quality of life. It is suggested that new researches explore more deeply this relation through longitudinal studies made with different populations.