<p>The effects of sociodemographic factors on quality of life among people aged 50 years or older are not unequivocal: comparing SF-12, WHOQOL-BREF, and WHOQOL-OLD</p>

Abstract

ObjectiveThe effects of sociodemographic factors on quality of life in older people differ strongly, possibly due to the fact that different measurement instruments have been used. The main aim of this cross-sectional study is to compare the associations of sex, age, marital status, education, and income with quality of life assessed with the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Older Adults Module (WHOQOL-OLD).MethodsThe associations between sociodemographic factors and eleven quality of life domains were examined using a sample of 1,492 Dutch people aged ≥50 years. Participants completed the “Senioren Barometer”, a web-based questionnaire including sociodemographic factors, the SF-12, the WHOQOL-BREF, and the WHOQOL-OLD.ResultsAll the sociodemographic factors together explained a significant part of the variance of all the quality of life domains’ scores, ranging from 5% to 17% for the WHOQOL-BREF, 5.8% to 6.7% for the SF-12, and 1.4% to 26% for the WHOQOL-OLD. Being a woman and being older were negatively associated with two and four quality of life domains, respectively. Being a woman, being married or cohabiting, and having higher education and a higher income were positively associated with six, six, one, and eleven quality of life domains, respectively.ConclusionOur study showed that the associations of sociodemographic factors and quality of life in middle-aged and older people depend on the instruments used to assess quality of life. We recommend that health care and welfare professionals focus particularly on people with a low income and carry out interventions aimed at improving their quality of life.

What predicts the quality of life in Turkey: The results of a country representative study

“…There is a positive relationship between the educational level of individuals and the quality of life according to the results of this study. It means that the education level brings higher quality of life, and this result is consistent with the results of previous studies both in Turkey (Nas, ); Daglar, Bilgic, & Özkan, ) and in other countries (Gobbens & Remmen, ; Ward, ). In their study, Torlak and Yavuzçehre () concluded that the level of quality of life was higher among the individuals whose education level was high even the general education level of the region where the study was conducted was low.…”

Quality of life of people seeking for acupuncture treatment

“…Our study identified that male patients had superior general quality of life indexes including the respective domains in relation to female patients, as also observed in other previous studies from different countries [34,35].…”

Sociodemographic Factors’ Association with Community-Dwelling Older Adults’ Psychosocial Wellbeing: The Greek Context

“…343 Psychology wellbeing outcomes among community-dwelling older adults in later life, as assessed using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS), and Spiritual Wellbeing Scale (SWBS). It was anticipated that wellbeing in this sample would be related to the same types of sociodemographic background factors, including poverty, education, and income, as have been found in previous researches in other cultural contexts (George, 2010;Gobbens & Remmen, 2019;Gwozdz & Sousa-Poza, 2010). for Children and Adults.…”

“…Moreover, before multiple regression, with the psychosocial domains of four scales as dependent variables and all sociodemographic factors as independent variables was performed, dummies for sex ("1" women and "0" men), marital status ("1" married or cohabiting and "0" otherwise), and frequency of church attendance ("0" weekly church attendance and "1" lack of weekly church attendance) were adopted, as used in other studies (Gobbens & Remmen, 2019). Moreover, effects of age, education, and perceived health status were included in these regression analyses.…”