Associação entre sintomas depressivos e fragilidade em idosos não institucionalizados

Abstract

Aging of population demands the relevance of studies on the elderly, such as frailty and depressive symptoms. Considering international researches demonstrating the association between frailty and depression, and highlighting the lack of Brazilian studies in this field, this research is relevant in order to assess the relation between frailty and depressive symptoms. This study aims to quantify the relation between frailty and depression in non-institutionalized elderly by applying a meta-analysis of observational studies selected from a systematic review besides data collected from a representative sample of elderly in Juiz de Fora (MG). In the systematic review, the researches in database were held on December 2012 and on February 2014. From 33 selected articles, 26 had presented the measure of interest or information that enabled the estimative and indicate a positive association with a combined Odds Ratio of 2.8 (CI 2.4, 3.2) of depressive symptoms in relation to the frailty, despite the considerable heterogeneity between studies. In the cross-sectional studies, were observed convergence in the results in which depressive symptoms appear more frequently in frail people, although these studies cannot establish the cause-effect relationship between variables. The same were revealed from the analysis over collect data in Juiz de Fora.