With the increase in the number of elderly people in Brazil and abroad, the quality of life of elderly over 60 years is worrisome. So, a way that can help the elderly try to improve their quality of life is their participation in conviviality groups. Objective: The purpose of this study is to assess the quality of life and the presence of depressive disorder among elderly participants and non participants in conviviality groups. Methodology: The sample consisted of 30 elderly involved conviviality groups (66,73+5,82 years) and 30 elderly people who do not participate in a group of coexistence (66,70+5,70 years). To assess the quality of life questionnaire it was used the generic SF-36, and to trace the presence of depressive disorder, it was used the GDS. To check the normality between the groups, it was used the Shapiro-Wilk test. The test for independent samples t-Student and the Mann-Whitney U test were used to perform the comparison between groups. The level of significance was maintained at 0.05 for all tests. Results: It was found a statistically significant difference in the functional capacity, general health, vitality and social aspects. Conclusions: The results suggest that older people that participate in conviviality groups have a better quality of life and lower incidence of depression when compared to older people who do not participate in a senior conviviality group.
Quality of Life; The Elderly; Groups of Living; SF-36; GDS