Abstract

Author(s): Costa, Emanuelle Dias; Soares, Mariana Cruz; Cunha de Oliveira, Carolina

Introduction: Currently anemia is considered a public health problem. The elderly population has been growing over the years due to the increase of life expectancy. However, this population is more vulnerable to pathological processes or physiological disorders, among them the anemia.

Objective: Evaluate the prevalence and characterization of anemia of elderly assisted in a Medical Center in the interior of Sergipe state

Methodology: Cross-sectional study, being conducted in the period from September to December 2015, with individuals aged ≥ 60 years, of both sexes. For definition of anemia, it was used the parameters: <13.0 g/dL and <12.0 g/dL hemoglobin for men and women, respectively. In addition, the characterisation of the type of anemia was given by values of the hematimetric components: mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. The significance level adopted for this study was p <0.05.

Results: We evaluated 159 individuals with average age of 70.9 years (SD: ±7.5), being 50.3% female. The prevalence of anemia was 45.9%, being higher in men (55.7%) compared to women (36.2%; p=0.014), and in those individuals classified as low weight (64.9%; p=0.001). Regarding the analysis of the morphology and staining of red cells, 43.9% of anemic elderly present concomitantly normocromia and normocitose, and 31.5% coursing with hypochromic and microcytosis

Conclusion: In this study there was a high prevalence of anemia and the great part of anemic appeared classified as having anemia type normocytic and normochromic, suggestive of anemia of chronic disease. The findings show the importance of investigating the underlying pathological clinical conditions to anemia, on the premise of improving the quality of life of the patient, as well as dealing with or recover your state of health.