[Quality of life in elderly people that have suffered falls: integrative literature review]

Abstract

An Integrative Literature Review was conducted in order to evaluate the scientific knowledge produced regarding quality of life of the elderly who have suffered falls. Published articles between 1999 and 2009 were selected from the LILACS, CINAHL and MEDLINE databases, and the following search words in Portuguese, English and Spanish were used: quality of life, the elderly and accidents involving falls. Nine articles met the inclusion criteria. It was revealed that falls are frequent among the elderly, and especially the elderly with more intrinsic risk factors and who have suffered falls are those who are more afraid and more prone to fall again. They also reported physical, mental and emotional impairments, body pains and environmental problems. It was revealed that programs to prevent falling can improve the quality of life of the elderly over time. It was clear that there are knowledge gaps, especially a low level of national scientific output, especially by nurses and the predominance of descriptive studies, with low levels of data. We suggest that health professionals conduct research into interventions to prevent falls that can be used in clinical practice in improving the quality of life of the elderly.