The Aging Profile of the Portuguese Population: A Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

In the last 5 years the resident population of Portugal has increased 2.3%, along with a progressive ageing. This study aims assessing the social dependence and frailty, as well as social and familial support needs of the elderly. In an observational, cross-sectional community based study (EPEPP study), a total of 2,672 people, aged 55 or more, were submitted to an enquiry and several variables were studied among three age groups: 55-64 years old (37%), 65-74 years old (37%) and ≥ 75 years old (26%), encompassing a total of 57% women and 43% men. A questionnaire including items such as physical autonomy, locomotion, falls, health/medical complaints, instrumental autonomy, physical activity, health self-evaluation and emotional status was applied. The strong correlations among the studied scores allowed the identification of people groups with common characteristics when a principal component analysis was used: "autonomy" (scores of instrumental autonomy, locomotion and physical autonomy) and "perception of health and emotional status" (scores of health self-evaluation and emotional status), were present in the three age groups. The component analysis evidences that a good autonomy, a good perception of health and emotional status are determinant to a good quality of life in elderly. Although health status and self-rated health have a propensity to deteriorate with aging, older Portuguese consider their state of health satisfactory and tend to underestimate their decline. In what concerns the analysis of gender with the same age and in contrast to what has been reported, older women alike to men, experience a good mobility and health self-evaluation.

Assessing Functional Capacity and Factors Determining Functional Decline in the Elderly: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…As far as self-perception of the state of physical and emotional health and quality of life was concerned (Table 3), 71.3% (n = 82) stated that their conditions interfered with their quality of life 7 .…”

Challenges of Ageing in Portugal: Data from the EpiDoC Cohort

“…The Estudo do Perfil de Envelhecimento da População Portuguesa (EPEPP) study, a cross-sectional study performed in 2005 and 2006, enrolled 2672 adults aged over 55 years old and mainly evaluated third-party dependency, functional ability, and laboratory results. 11,12 Portugal is one of the 28 participant countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), a multidisciplinary, cross-national panel database of approximately 123 000 adults aged 50 or older containing microdata regarding health, socioeconomic status, and social and family networks. 13 Despite these initiatives, comprehensive and multidimensional data of older groups representative of the Portuguese population are lacking.…”

Psychosocial adjustment and health in older people: cluster analysis

“…Relativamente aos baixos níveis de adesão terapêutica, a literatura normalmente aponta para que a não adesão afete mais significativamente idosos mais velhos, nomeadamente os idosos de idade superior a 75 anos apresentam maiores dificuldades na adesão terapêu-tica, inclusive na compreensão das instruções para a toma da medicação (Marek & Antle, 2008). É ainda no perfil de pior ajustamento que encontramos um número superior de mulheres, o que vai ao encontro da evidência que descreve piores resultados neste grupo, nas medidas subjetivas de saúde e de qualidade de vida (Rodrigues et al, 2014). O número de idosos solteiros, viúvos e divorciados é também significativamente maior neste grupo.…”