Leisure and quality of life: considerations about the aging process

• Autores: Marcelo Martinelli, Adriana Munhoz Carneiro, Fabián Javier Rueda
• Localización: Scientia Medica, ISSN-e 1980-6108, Vol. 24, Nº. 3, 2014
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • AIMS: To evaluate the correlation between leisure and quality of life and to investigate differences between elderly and adults aged between 50 and 59 years. METHODS: The study included subjects of both genders, attendees of a community center for the elderly in a municipality in the state of São Paulo. The instruments Word Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument Bref (WHOQOL-Bref) in its Portuguese version and Leisure Assessment Scale (EAVLA) were used. To verify the correlation between leisure factors and domains of quality of life, as well as differences between the groups with more and less than 60 years old, Pearson correlation and Student t test were used. To analyze the influence of leisure on the quality of life, a model of structural equations was applied. RESULTS: The study included 106 subjects, divided into Group 1 (60-82 years) and Group 2 (50-59 years). Considering correlation between general leisure and quality of life, the Pearson coefficient corresponded to 0.32 in the social relationships domain (moderate positive correlation), to 0.28 in the environmental domain and to 0.20 in the global quality of life (weak positive correlations). By means of the structural equation model, leisure corresponded to 10% of quality of life. There was no difference in quality of life between the two groups. In the socio-cultural leisure activities, the Group 1 had an average of 88.52±15.58, while Group 2 had 96.41±13.37 (p=0.009). CONCLUSIONS: Sociocultural activities scored higher in the group aged up to 59 years. Despite the low or moderate correlation between constructs, this study confirmed that leisure was an important component in the quality of life of people aged between 50 and 82 years and suggests further studies with this population, in order to ascertain more precisely the mutual assistance between these constructs and the handling of variables in intervention processes.