Vulnerabilidades da pessoa idosa na atenção primária à saúde: revisão integrativa da literatura

Abstract

The accelerated growth of the elderly population requires the adequacy of health services to meet the peculiar needs of this age group. In this sense, Primary Health Care represents an important space for identifying vulnerable situations in elderly people. The objective was to analyze the scientific evidence in the construction of knowledge in Nursing, about the vulnerabilities of the elderly in PHC. This is an integrative literature review, in which the search took place on the Regional Portal of the Virtual Health Library, in July 2022. The corpus of the study comprised 15 articles. It was identified that the publications occurred in the period from 2012 to 2020, with a predominance of quantitative research, developed in Brazil and level of evidence N6. The most used data collection instruments were the IVCF-20, VES-13 and the Zarit Overload Inventory. Individual vulnerability was associated with older age, comorbidities, continuous use of medication and polypharmacy, depressive symptoms and impaired cognition; in the social dimension, female gender, low education and low individual and/or family income were pointed out. Programmatic vulnerability is linked to occasional consultations with health professionals, low adherence to group activities, hospitalizations in the last year and lack of professional qualification for health care for the elderly. The identification of vulnerable situations can help health managers and professionals in planning and adapting health services and policies. Still, it points out gaps in the construction of knowledge about the vulnerabilities of the elderly.