[Functional capacity for daily living activities among senior citizens attending Community Centers in the city of Zaragoza, Spain, 2005].
BACKGROUND
To study the dependence related to aging is of particular interest in Aragon, where the population is one of the most aged in Spain. The objective of this study is that of quantifying the degree of functional dependence for daily living activities (DLA) and identifying the personal traits related thereto among individuals age 65 and above who are living at home and attend Community Centers in the city of Zaragoza.


METHODS
Cross-sectional study with 380 individuals selected by two-stage sampling. The OARS-MFAQ questionnaire was used by way of personal interviews, analyzing questions which assess the functional capacity to carry out the DLA's and their scoring (dependent variable), sociodemographic variables, self-assessed health condition and actual and hypothetical informal help (independent variables). The chi-square was used for evaluating classified residual data (p<0.05) and multiple correspondence analyses.


RESULTS
A total of 9.6% of the subjects showed "major/total dependence", this percentage increasing to 15.5% and 18.7% for those individuals above age 75 and 80, respectively. The "minor/moderate dependence" is related to being a female (p<0.01), health condition self-assessed as poor-passable (p<0.0001), being a widow(er) (p<0.01), having no elementary school education (p<0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Those individuals who are more elderly, females, widow/widowers, having a lesser degree of education and worse self-assessed health condition are more dependent. Practically one out of every ten non-institutionalized individuals 65 years of age or over shows a severe deterioration of their functional capacity. Extrapolating, nearly 11,000 individuals in the city of Zaragoza would require daily help for the DLA's or should stay institutionalized.
Lázaro Alquézar
Angelina
A
Departmento de Economía Aplicada, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Zaragoza. alazaro@unizar.es
Rubio Aranda
Encarnación
E
Sánchez Sánchez
Antonio
A
García Herrero
Julio César
JC
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017805:Widowhood