II - Factores de sustentabilidade económica e financeira das instituições de apoio a pessoas idosas em Portugal: estudo num município rural

This article aims to discover and systematise the factors that condition the economic and financial sustainability factors of support institutions for elderly people and the point of view of the institutions’ managers and local bodies. This method used wasbased on two questionnaires, one for 97 members of institutions for elderly people and another for 138 users of those institutions, and interviews with the institutions’ managers and local authorities. The work carried out revealed that there is a wide range of sustainability factors in the economic and financial domain, with emphasis on the following: 1) the state’s financial contribution; 2) the users’ financial contribution; 3) members’ payments; 4) openness to other groups with greater financial capacity; 5) organisation and management of institutions; 6) caution regarding indebtedness.