Associations between anxiety and functional disability in older adults: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Objective to estimate the prevalence of anxiety in older adults and its association with different levels of functional disability in a small town in the state of Paraiba, Brazil. Method a cross-sectional analytical study was carried out of 233 randomly-selected older users of the Family Health Strategy program. Data were collected using the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 and the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory. Results were analyzed using descriptive and bivariate statistics adopting a significance level of p < 0.05. Results Overall, 48.1% of the participants had some degree of selfreported anxiety, with significantly higher levels among women (mean rank = 128.11; p = 0.002). An association was also found between severe anxiety level and severe disability level (p < 0.001). Conclusion the high prevalence of different degrees of geriatric anxiety and its association with severe functional disability indicates the coexistence of psychoemotional and motor alterations. These findings suggest the need to break the chain of underdiagnosis and strengthen the implementation of specialized interventions in the field of gerontology and geriatrics.