Sociodemographic factors and functional capacity of elderly affected by stroke

Diseases of old age have shown increasing prevalence in society. One of them is stroke, which can be conceptualized as the interruption of cerebral blood supply due to a leakage or blood vessel obstruction caused by clots.

To verify the associations between sociodemographic factors and the functional capacity of elderly affected by stroke.

This is an epidemiological, cross-sectional, and quantitative study, including 118 elderly people with paralyses due to stroke, who were registered in one of the Family Health Strategies units of Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil. Data were collected by means of home interviews. Two questionnaires were used, in which one was directed for assessment of sociodemographic variables and the second was called Barthel index for assessing the functional capacity of the subjects regarding the activities of daily life. The analysis was conducted using the statistical program SPSS.

There was a predominance of the female gender, widowed, without schooling, and with household income of up to one Brazilian minimum wage. The average age was 65 years (± 9.63). The Barthel index internal consistency was satisfactory, presenting values of Cronbach's alpha coefficient in the range of 0.897-0.918. Total correlation of corrected items was greater than 0.4, and Cronbach's alpha with a deleted item was also greater than 0.8. The activities with higher level of achievement difficulty were urination and evacuation. Association between functional capacity with race, age range, and schooling was found.

It was seen that demographic factors might interfere with the functional capacity of elderly affected by stroke. Hence, it is believed that this investigation might have contributed to the reflection on this issue, thus supporting the promotion of these people's access to health assistance programs.