The factors affecting health related quality of life of the Turkish older adults living in Manisa

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to set out the variables that affect the health related quality of life the older adults in,.

MATERIALS AND METHOD: This cross sectional study was carried out in a rural, sub-urban, and urban district of Manisa. The sample size was 510, and the participation rate was 69.6%. WHOQOL_Bref and its older adults’ module (WHOQOL-OLD) were used to assess the quality of life. WHOQOL has four domains: Physical, Psychological, Social Relations and Environmental whereas WHOQOL-OLD has six domains: Sensory Abilities, Autonomy, Past, Present and Future Activities, Social Participation , Death and Dying , Intimacy. Univariate analysis and multivariate analysis (Logistic Regression analysis) were used in the comparisons.

RESULTS: The mean age of the respondents was 73.0±6.38 (min:65, max:98) , 67.2% were women; 52% was illiterate; 21% with no social security . 41% perceived themselves as poor; 20% were living alone;75% were living in the urban area,10% were living in the squatters.

General health quality facet and all four domains of the WHOQOL were taken as dependent variables, significant relationship was found with all independent variables (socio-demographic, co-morbidity, health service use and accessibility, social interactions with children and grand children and level of dependency, ) except age and gender. The ones who didn’t have a chronic disease had higher life quality. Except for WHOQOL-Old Past Present and Future Activities domains, all of the remaining domains of WHOQOL_Old showed significance with socioeconomic variables. 

CONCLUSION:

Turkish versions of both WHOQOL and its Older Adults module are useful tools to evaluate older adults’ HRQOL in. The already known casual relationships of HRQOL that were observed in the studies conducted on adults were also detected for the older adults sample except age and gender.