Percepção dos idosos acerca do envelhecimento à luz da teoria de Madeleine Leininger

The aging process is the subject of several studies in the field of health, being associated with health practices and the quality of life of the individual, which is indispensable for an active aging. As a sequential stage of life, aging should not be considered synonymous with illness, inactivity or involution, but conceived from values that characterize different cultures. Therefore, the integrative review article, inserted in this work, aimed to investigate the factors that interfere in the process of healthy aging evidenced in the national and international scientific productions published in the period from 2005 to 2015. The databases consulted were Scopus, Cinahl, Lilacs and BDENF, and there were six articles. The findings denote that process of healthy aging as well as aging are characterized as a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses individual and collective specificities and involves the physical, cognitive, psychological and social aspects of human nature. The original article aimed to understand the aging process from the perception of the elderly in the light of Madeleine Leininger’s Theory, according to which people from different cultures can offer information and guide health professionals about the way they want to receive nursing care, that is, this information can provide practical and theoretical basis for the implementation of educational actions in which the images and representations of aging constructed by the elderly are evidenced. An exploratory-descriptive research with a qualitative approach was carried out in order to quantify the most recurrent ones and to categorize them from the notions of "good or bad". The participants of the research were elderly seniors regularly enrolled in the second half of 2016, at UnATI/UFPE. The data were produced from semi-structured interviews, recorded, transcribed and processed with the aid of the IRAMUTEQ software (Interface of Multi- Dimensional Analizes of Textes and Questionnaires). These data revealed that the elderlypeople`s perception of aging is based on a negative dimension, which implies that the limitingfactors inherent in this phase are stressed in this process. In addition, a more detailed discussion of this issue was necessary in the context of the training of health professionals,especially nurses, whose profession is essentially cross-cultural care – as advocated by Madeleine Leininger in her theory -, a factor which can significantly influence the way theelderly perceive themselves as a component of cultural and social dynamics.