Watching television corresponds to the most frequent sedentary behavior in older adults and which is associated with greater health risks, including frailty and all-cause mortality. Thus, it is important to develop studies that assess the factors that are associated with this behavior, so that the government, together with health professionals, has adequate knowledge to support the best recommendations for the older population, which can guide change or, at least, a decrease in the daily time spent on this behavior.

Identify the factors associated with the time spent watching television in the older adults.

Cross-sectional study, with data from 22,728 Brazilian community-dwelling older adults (≥60 years old) participating in the National Health Survey 2019. The outcome of the study consisted of self-reporting the time spent watching television, dichotomized into <3h/day and ≥3h/day. The independent variables were sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics, health conditions and functional capacity. To investigate the various associated factors, multivariate logistic regression analyzes with robust variance were performed using a hierarchical analytical model.

The proportion of older adults sampled who spent ≥ 3h/day watching television was 28.8% (95%CI: 28.2; 29.5). The following factors were positively associated with longer hours watching television: (1) sociodemographic (female gender [OR: 1.31; 95%CI: 1.21; 1.41]; age between 70 and 79 years [OR: 1.20; CI95: 1.11; 1.30] and ≥80 years [OR: 1.25; CI95%: 1.12; 1.39]; years of study over 12 [OR: 1.24; CI95%: 1 .10; 1.42] and between 9 and 11 [OR: 1.24. 95%CI: 1.08; 1.43]; divorced [OR: 1.33; 95%CI: 1.23; 1.44] and widowed [OR: 1.35; 95%CI: 1.24; 1.48]), (2) behavioral (smoker [OR: 1.55; 95%CI: 1.40; 1.72]; insufficiently active in the leisure [OR: 1.12; 95%CI: 1.02; 1.22]), (3) health conditions (with a chronic disease [OR: 1.35; 1.13; 95%CI: 1.03; 1.25] and more than two [OR: 1.46; 95%CI: 1.33; 1.60]; overweight [OR: 1.28; 95%CI: 1.16; 1.42]) and (4) functional capacity (mild functional disability [OR: 1.19; 95%CI: 1.09; 1.30] and moderate/severe [OR: 1.38; 95%CI: 1.25; 1.52]) . On the other hand, per capita household income ≥1 and <2 (OR: 0.82; 95%CI: 0.74; 0.90) and <1 minimum wage (OR: 0.76; 95%CI: 0.69; 0.83), and without schooling (OR: 0.62; 95%CI: 0.53; 0.71) were negatively associated with longer hours watching television.

Therefore, it is important that these factors be considered in the multidimensional assessment of the older adults, so that intervention measures are effective, such as guiding greater social interactions and inserting healthier habits into daily life, such as the practice of physical activity and healthy eating.

The results reinforce the evaluation of these characteristics in clinical practice to track and identify the factors associated with greater chances of older people spending extended time watching television, which, in turn, can prevent several negative outcomes for the health of the older person.