Loneliness lived by older women that living alone: needs assessment

Identifier:  TFG:407

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG407

Authors:  Martín Barbó, Irene

Abstract:
ABSTRACT Objective: Explore how loneliness affects the daily lives of three women over 75 who live alone in order to detect possible altered needs. Methodology: Qualitative study of phenomenological approach. We performed a thematic analysis of the discursive content of three women over 75 who lived alone developing categories of study. Results: We observed that they felt more alone at night and that their health status was associated most directly with loneliness. The main satisfaction of living alone was the feeling of independence and the main insatisfaction was the lack of company. It was also noted that the main strategy used to combat loneliness was watching television, the main altered needs were nutrition, sleep and communication and the deficient use of health services made by the three participants. Conclusion: It's necessary to make an active/proactive recruitment of this vulnerable population in order to follow their evolution and provide the necessary assistance so that they may have information and access to the available resources, both health and social. It is also necessary, to impact on the realization of interventions to address specifically on nutrition, sleep and communication, because these are the most altered needs detected in this group of population. Keywords: Loneliness, Elderly women, Qualitative research