Representações sociais e institucionalização de pessoas idosas

Abstract

Demographic aging is a reality that we all recognize and we have to face. The challenges faced with this reality are many and require a new look due to its impact on social level. Being a target of society seek to prolong the life of its citizens, it would not be consistent not to try also, improve their quality of life. In addition, the constraints of the elderly population are many, and sometimes it becomes necessary, due to various factors, the institutionalization of the elderly. The connotations, in most often negative, associated with institutions, are a major factor to refuse the internment. However, these perceptions may not be adequate to reality because of the changes that have occurred in recent times. Thus, this thesis has as theme, the social representations and the institutionalization of older people, and as subject of empirical research, the image that older people have on the institutionalization, that already live in a real-life situation, or who may be experiencing. With respect to the methodological procedures, the guideline adopted fits in the qualitative approach, presenting primarily as a comparative study. Thus, in a comprehensive perspective of social phenomen, we chose to immerse in the reality of a service of home care, a recreation center, and a nursing home, in the parish of Benfica, three different social responses, in order to obtain a knowledge of social life in study and apprehending the meaning given by the subjects to their own contexts. This way, there have been five semi-directive interviews to five people of four distinct groups: the group of the home care, the group of the recreation center, the group of the nursing home, and the group of potential users of social responses. To say that it has been developed a field work through the semi-directive interviews to people from each of the groups and through the documentary research. Subsequently, all the information gathered will be the target of qualitative treatment through content analysis.

Date of Award	Oct 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Henrique Joaquim (Supervisor)