[Counseling and preventive action in elderly population in hospitals and residences in Spain]

To establish the profile of elderly patients, and to assess current preventive actions in hospitals, geriatric residences, and different health-care centres in Spain.

Cross-sectional descriptive study, based on a questionnaire to be answered by doctors who treat the elderly population in Spain (2013).

Health-care centres from different regions of Spain.

A total of 420 practitioners from hospitals, residences and other community centres, with data from 840 geriatric clinics.

Main outcome variables are: dependence, reason for assistance, comorbidity, professional consultation, and life style recommendations. Association factor, type of institution where patients have been attended. Analysis of prevalence and association using Chi-squared test.

Two-thirds (66.7%) of the study population were shown to be dependent, with a higher percentage among women than men: 68.9% vs. 62.4% (P=.055). It was also found that among the population aged 85 or more, 88.6% of the women and 85.2% of the men suffered comorbidity. In spite of these results, only 6.6% of the patients suffering comorbidity received additional advice concerning healthy-lifestyle. A large majority (79.6%) of the patients treated in hospitals received advice concerning healthy lifestyle, while 59.62% of those treated in nursing homes received it (P<.001).

It was observed that there is a lack of preventive action related to health promotion among the elderly, with differences between hospitals and geriatric residences. This suggests that it is time to put forward new specialised programs addressed to health professionals, in order to reinforce health promotion attitudes and preventive interventions in gerontology clinical practice.