AUTOESTIMA DE IDOSOS COMUNITÁRIOS E FATORES ASSOCIADOS: ESTUDO DE BASE POPULACIONAL*
SELF-ESTEEM OF COMMUNITY-BASED ELDERLY AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS: A POPULATION-BASED STUDY ABSTRACT:The aim was to assess the self-esteem of community-based elderly and verify its association with socio-demographic and health variables. The epidemiological survey was held in the urban region of Uberaba, a city in the state of Minas Gerais, with 980 elderly people. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem, Katz, Lawton and Short Geriatric Depression Scales were used and, for descriptive analysis, the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, Spearman's correlation and multiple linear regression were used (p<0.05). The data were collected between August 2012 and March 2013. The female gender was predominant, 70-80 years, married, income one minimum wage, between four and seven years of education, who lived with their children. The median number of illnesses was five. The median selfesteem score was ten. The predictors of worse levels of selfesteem were higher age (p<0.01), lower education (p=0.021) and signs of depression (p<0.001). The community-based elderly presented high self-esteem and signs of depression were the main predictor of low self-esteem.