Effect of the home health care program on culturally diverse elder people. Efecto programa de salud domiciliaria en personas ancianas de grupos culturalmente diversos.

Abstract

Introduction: The culturally adapted home health care programs, allow to obtain efficient results in vulnerable populations. Objective: Evaluate the effect of a home health care program on elder people with functional dependency in three culturally diverse groups. Methodology: Quantitative study with secondary data, results of four quasi-experimental studies. 155 elders from three cultural groups participated in the program: inhabitants of the urban area of Bogota (58), farmers from Caqueza (30), afro Colombians from Tumaco (18) and Guapi (49). The information was recollected with the following scales: pain intensity, self-perception of health and daily life activities (AVD). A descriptive analysis and a Wilcoxon signed-rank test were performed for each group. Ethical aspects were considered. Results: The home health care program for elder people had a statistically significant positive effect in the variables of pain, self-perception, and dependency on daily life activities; it particularly observed the pain intensity of afro Colombians and the increase of independence of farmers in daily life activities. Conclusions: The achievement of statistically significant results in the variables of pain, self-perception and dependency in the culturally diverse groups f elder people, suggest the need to perform researches about cultural home health care and participation of the caregivers, also considering the low therapeutic adherence of elder people with functional dependency.