Percepciones del adulto mayorsobre sexualidad en el Área de los Servicios Sociales de la Tercera Edad del Instituto Ecuatoriano de Seguridad Social, Cuenca Ecuador 2015

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Over 22% of older adults in the world have problems with sexuality, where prejudice, idiosyncrasy and culture are part of it. However in our area we don´t have studies evaluating the behavior of the sexuality of the elderly subjects.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE: To establish the perceptions of the elderly about sexuality in the area of Social Services for the Elderly of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security Cuenca, 2015.

METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 306 elderly, data on age, sex, marital status, residence, education, medical conditions, drug use and sexuality perceptions were collected. The information was processed using SPSS program version 20.00. The association between qualitative variables was determined by chi square test.

RESULTS: Of the 306 patients, 70.6% were women and 29.4% men. Men believed that illness and medical treatments affect sexuality. It was argued mainly that monotony, lack of privacy and lack of communication do affect sexuality. The women said that sex in an older adult should be done once a month, while men once a week.

CONCLUSIONS: We show that sexuality in the elderly is of great complexity and factors such as age and psychosocial play an important role on its conception. Studies should be conducted on a larger scale to determine the most influential factors on sexuality in older adults.