Saúde mental dos idosos em instituições de longa permanência: revisão sistemática de literatura

Abstract

Due to the social changes, the technological advances in the medical area and to the practices of prevention of diseases and injures, the elderly population has grown substantially throughout the world and expressively in Brazil. Individuals have lived far beyond the age of 60 and many seniors are institutionalized. Institutionalization, among many other social and biological variables, may, to a certain extent, influence the mental health of this population. Objectives: To investigate in the literature the mental health situation of the elderly in long term institutions, to identify the mental disorders that most affect the elderly people living in ILPI, as well as the main factors that may contribute to the mental illness of these elderly people. Method: It is a systematic review of literature with searches from LILACS, PUBMED-MEDLINE and SCIELO databases, restricting publications between 2007 and 2016 and written in Portuguese, Spanish or English. The following descriptors were used to search the database: "Long-term institution", "Mental health", "Institutionalized elderly", "Elderly and mental illness". All study designs were considered. Search result: 529 items were found in the database. Articles that did not meet previously established inclusion criteria were excluded and 10 articles were elected for this review. Conclusions: The studies showed that the majority of the institutionalized elderly presented at least some type of mental disorder like: dementia, depression and anxiety, being depression, considered the most common. Dependence, loss of autonomy, feeling of incomprehension, feeling of loneliness and decreased functionality were identified as factors that contributed most to mental impairment.