Day Care Centers, the Covid-19 Pandemic and Quality of Life

In Portugal, and in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, social responses aimed at older people have had to adjust the way they operate. In the particular case of Day Care Centers, Decree-Law No. 10-A/2020 of March 13 established the suspension of the social support activity carried out. It would only reopen in April 2021 (Decree-Law no. 53-A/2021).With this in mind, and in order to gather evidence to characterize the perspective of older people regarding the closure/suspension of Day Care Centres, a quantitative cross-sectional study was carried out. The results showed that the sample reported the following difficulties associated with the closure of the social response: occupation of time (70%), feelings of loneliness (65%), general worsening of health status (50%) and worsening of pre-existing mental/cognitive health (30%). From the point of view of Social Gerontology, the results seem to point to negative consequences resulting from the closure/suspension of the face-to-face activity of the DCs, as well as the need to take into account gender differences at older ages.