<p>Health-related quality of life and well-being health state values among Dutch oldest old</p>

Abstract

Background: Valuing hypothetical health states is a demanding personal process, since it involves the psychological evaluation of hypothetical health states. It seems plausible that elderly individuals will value hypothetical health states differently than the general population. It is, however, important to understand the psychological division that oldest old subgroups construct between acceptable and unacceptable health states. This information can produce important evidence regarding well-being and disability conceptualization. Objective: To investigate how Dutch oldest old, conceptualize health-related quality of life health states when compared to well-being health states. In addition, we aim to compare subgroups, based on dependency classification. Methods: Ninety-nine elderly living in the Groningen, Hoogeveen and Veendam areas of the Netherlands participated in the study. Respondents were classified into three groups based on dependency levels. The respondents were asked to value hypothetical health states, a generic preference-based HRQoL and a well-being instrument, using a visual analog scale. Results: All three groups ranked the same health states, from both questionnaires, below the average across the health states. The health-related quality of life health states was consistently ranked lower than the current well-being health states. Conclusions: Health state valuations performed by the oldest old indicate that conceptually, respondents view below average health-related and well-being health states as undesirable. The results indicated that the oldest old do view deficits in health-related health states as more important than deficits in well-being health states. Since the oldest old performed the valuations, focused interventions to improve below average health-related outcomes might be the most cost-effective way to increase oldest old well-being outcomes.

Eliciting national and subnational sets of disability weights in mainland China: Findings from the Chinese disability weight measurement study

“…A previous study suggests that elderly individuals may value hypothetical health states differently than the general population. 39 Older raters in that study gave significantly more weight to functional limitations and social functioning and less to morbidities and pain experience, compared to younger raters. We found very high correlation between results for three age groups in this study.…”

Good Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Patients One Year after mTBI despite Incomplete Recovery: An Indication of the Disability Paradox?

“…Fourth, since this study was part of the UPFRONT study, a separate sample size calculation was not conducted for the HRQoL questionnaire and its subdomains. However, when considering other studies examining older adults and HRQoL, our group is comparable or even larger [38,54,55]. Therefore, we believe that our sample size was sufficient to provide a reliable assessment of HRQoL, although we might have lacked power for detecting differences at the subdomain level.…”

How Does Participation in Formal Education or Learning for Older People Affect Wellbeing and Cognition? A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis

“…However, many of these studies have been limited by small sample sizes, the specifics of the educational course, or are related to a specific geographical area. As such, insights into the impact of later life education using pooled data from relevant outcomes such as cognitive health (Creavin et al, 2016; Folstein et al, 1975; Yesavage et al, 1982) and QOL (Ware and Gandek, 1998) are currently absent (Arai et al, 2012; Botes et al, 2019; Di Gessa & Grundy, 2014; Narushima et al, 2018b; Villar & Celdrán, 2013).…”

“…Learning in late adulthood goes beyond productive or active ageing and instead promotes healthy cognitive function, self-dependency, and a sense of social belonging through participation in educational interventions (Narushima et al, 2018a). There is a growing body of literature on the effects of participating in educational or learning activities in later life adults (Botes et al, 2019;Di Gessa & Grundy, 2014;Narushima et al, 2018aNarushima et al, , 2018bSomrongthong et al, 2017;Villar & Celdrán, 2013). These studies show dramatic improvements in health-related quality of life (QOL) and psychological wellbeing among adult learners who have participated in formal and nonformal (i.e., leisure type courses) educational activities.…”