Factors associated with health-related quality of life: the role of social relationships among the elderly in an Italian region

Personal Factors Predictive of Health-Related Lifestyles of Community-Dwelling Older Adults

“…In general, after the stepwise selection of the previous two predominant personal health factors, the demographic variables appeared to be less accountable for the variance of lifestyle behaviors (see b coefficients in Table 3), yet the levels of their predictive strength were still statistically significant. Although findings of population-based studies on various health outcomes (e.g., functional independence, life satisfaction, quality of life) have generally favored married older men and women (de Belvis et al, 2008;McCamish-Svensson, Samuelsson, Hagberg, Svensson, & Dehlin, 1999), our results did not suggest the effect of marital status on the outcomes of the lifestyle measure. Interestingly, as distinguished by Pender (1996) in her Health Promotion Model, personal psychocognitive factors, such as selfperception of health and self-efficacy, may have more direct influence on the pattern and frequency of healthpromoting behaviors, whereas personal demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, race, and marital status, are considered modifying factors that have indirect effects on health behaviors.…”

Quality of Life among Persons Aged 60-84 Years in Europe: The Role of Psychological Abuse and Socio-Demographic, Social and Health Factors

“…Social support (e.g. having help from friends) 8 and social engagement has a positive influence on health, QoL and life satisfaction and the opposite regarding low social support/social isolation [33,34,[127][128][129][130]. Thus, our results seem in accord with previous observations.…”

Social networks and quality of life of elderly persons: a review and critical analysis of literature

“…The samples that have been employed tend to be made up of more than 30 individuals, while more than half of the studies analyzed in this review 7,25,26,29,30,37,38,42 made use of representative samples. Thus, probabilistic selection of the elements to be studied within a determined temporal and geographical context was preferred.…”

“…In the restricted set of studies in which this analysis is carried out, the works by De Belvis et al 38,39 in Italy show that there is a positive association between the geographic proximity of the family network and the health-related QOL of elderly persons aged 60 or over, controlling the effect of sociodemographic and health variables. The results presented by Litwin and Stoeckel 37 , based on data from the fourth wave of the SHARE project, on individuals aged 65 and over in 16 European countries, indicate that low or moderate geographical proximity of social network elements is associated with the greater QOL of these individuals, once the effect of sociodemographic variables and the state of health is controlled.…”

“…High contact frequencies have been commonly associated with higher levels of QOL or other indicators of well-being in North America and European countries 21,29,[38][39][40][41] . However, some studies have associated frequency of contact with lower wellbeing 42 or have concluded that there is no association between contact frequency and the QOL/well-being of the elderly 7,31,43,44 .…”