What is Vulnerability?” A Qualitative Study about the Perception of Vulnerability in Adults and Older Adults

Abstract

Aligned with a global trend, Brazil has been changing demographic profile in recent decades, making this structural phenomenon one of the most important achievements of contemporary society. This social process is not limited to the combined effects of strictly demographic variables and can both create demographic possibilities that enhance the growth of the economy, increasing social welfare, as stressing the economic and social hardships, expanding the serious social inequalities of Brazilian society. In this sense, it is important to read vulnerability from the perspective of research participants, in order to seek the categorization, bringing support for understanding the components of vulnerability allowing the search for strategies to cope with social vulnerability. This paper aims to assess qualitatively, through semi-structured interview, the individual perception about the vulnerability, categorizing the speech of participants and proposing reflections that may enhance the field of social vulnerability. The study is characterized as qualitative content analysis according to Bardin. Nine categories emerged from the speech. The more inference was on account of the category "Health and Disease", with 25%; then with 20% "Behaviour"; 17% represented the total of inferences about the "Autonomy"; 15% related vulnerability to "Fragility"; 9% on "Family relationships, loneliness"; 4% related to "Violence"; 3% to the category "Hunger" and two categories represented 2% each - "Financial" and "Physical, Age". The personal conception of vulnerability is directly related to disease or illhealth process. The age range, a factor admittedly predisposed to vulnerable, did not have a significant expression in the speech of participants.