Introduction: Adverse events, safety incidents, and medical errors in healthcare can be avoided only by understanding the causes of their occurrence, and by applying the knowledge gained from the analysis of similar previous events. Since it is known that most adverse events do not originate from a single cause, most important is timely identification of numerous contributory states that can give us the opportunity to define a number of possible solutions to correct process errors and deficiencies in the system itself. The aim of this paper is to investigate the association between functional capacity of elderly living with cardiovascular diseases and the occurrence of adverse events during use of health-care services.Methods: Assessment of functional limitations was done using the Groningen Activity Restriction Scale (GARS). The presence of adverse events was evaluated after interviews with subjects and review of medical records. Differences in continuous numerical values between inpatient and outpatient service users were analyzed by the Mann–Whitney U-test. Spearman’s correlation coefficients of the number of actual adverse events with the presence of restrictions in daily activities were calculated. Fisher’s exact test or Fisher-Freeman-Halton test (in cases of table sizes larger than 2 × 2 format) analyzed the differences in category variables.Results: The total number of adverse events was 30 (10.1% of the total number of subjects), while there were 12 actual adverse events (40.0% of the total number of adverse events). No statistically significant correlation was found between the limitations in performing daily activities and the occurrence of actual adverse events (p = 0.173).Conclusion: The research conducted in this paper showed that the functional capacity of the elderly with chronic disease is not exclusively related with the occurrence of adverse events associated with health-care utilization.

Providing intensive informal caregiving can cause caregivers’ overburden, possibly impacting successful ageing factors such as physical and mental health and social life. This article aimed to investigate how informal caregivers experience the impact of providing care for chronic respiratory patients on the process of caregiver ageing. A qualitative exploratory study was performed using semi-structured interviews. The sample comprised 15 informal caregivers who provided intensive care for patients with chronic respiratory failure for more than six months. They were recruited while accompanying the patients on their examination for chronic respiratory failure in Special Hospital for Pulmonary Disease in Zagreb between January 2020 and November 2020. Semi-structured interviews were used with informal caregivers, and interview transcripts were analysed by the inductive thematic analysis method. Similar codes were organised into categories, and categories were grouped into themes. Two themes were identified in the domain of physical health relating to informal caregiving activities and inadequate treatment of their difficulties, three themes were in the domain of mental health relating to satisfaction with the recipient of care and feelings, and two themes were in the domain of social life, relating to social isolation and social support. Informal caregivers of patients with chronic respiratory failure experience a negative impact on the factors that contribute to the successful ageing of informal caregivers. The results of our research suggest that caregivers need support in maintaining their own health and social inclusion.

The ability to perform basic activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) is an essential indicator of the level of functional capacity in old age. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate reliability and validity of the self - reporting method in detecting functional difficulties among elderly persons with cardiovascular diseases. The Groningen Activity Restriction Scale was used to assess the limitations in functional capacity. The sample consisted of patients over the age of 65 with hypertensive disease, angina pectoris, ischaemic heart disease, degenerative valvular disorders, peripheral arterial disease, cardiac arrhythmias, cardiomyopathy and heart failure. The Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficient was calculated for the total result. Differences in outcome with respect to age, educational level, marital status, and medical diagnoses of participants were compared by means of a t-test or one-way ANOVA. In the group of ADL, participants reported difficulties in climbing stairs (M=2.14, SD=1.07) and caring for feet and toenails (M=2.17, SD=1.27), while in the group of IADL, difficulties were present in performing heavier household chores (M=2.51, SD=1.31) as well as ironing and washing clothes (M=2.20, SD=1.29). Calculation of the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient points to a high degree of internal consistency for this scale on a chosen sample (α=0.95). The use of a validated self-reporting tool may be a valuable and reliable way for assessing the functional capacity of elderly persons with chronic diseases. The findings of this study indicate the possibility of using this method for prognostic purposes in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Introduction of instrumental support measures in a timely manner has a crucial role in delaying the progression of functional dependence.