Quality of life and its correlates in a community population in a Japanese rural area

Abstract

Correlations of three aspects of quality of life (QOL) (health perception, life satisfaction, and self-confidence) with personality traits and early experiences were examined. Quality of life aspects were examined using 220 inhabitants in a rural community in Japan. Health perception was better among men than among women. Life satisfaction and self-confidence were better in people aged 55 or over than in those under 55. Among the current predictor variables, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire neuroticism score was correlated with poor life satisfaction in the younger women; the extraversion score with the older women's health perception, the older men's life satisfaction, and the women's self-confidence; and the psychoticism score with the older men's life satisfaction. Among early life predictors, self-confidence was lower among those older men who had reported early parental loss. Childhood paternal overprotection was correlated with poor health perception in younger people and with good health perception in older women. Some negative life events experienced during childhood were correlated with poorer QOL measures in some subgroups, while positive life experiences were correlated with the older women's life satisfaction. These findings suggest that the three aspects of the QOL are discrete in their psychosocial correlates and that interventions on health education and care should take into account individual's psychosocial attributes.

Personality and body mass index: A cross-sectional analysis from the Miyagi Cohort Study

“…Eysenck proposed broad factors-extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie-which he viewed as a sufficient model (or "paradigm") of personality [23][24][25]. Several Eysenck's personality questionnaires have been translated into Japanese [16,19,20] and have been applied in various research and clinical settings [26][27][28][29]. These studies have indicated that Eysenck's personality theory is as applicable to Japanese individuals as it is to Western individuals.…”

Quality of life and lifestyle among city dwellers participating in the medical programs

“…Moreover, Chang‐nian investigated QOL amongst Japanese involved in agriculture, and reported that age and gender were determining factors of QOL, and that satisfaction with life in males and elderly people was higher than that in females and younger subjects 26 . In addition, Kitamura et al ., investigating QOL among the general Japanese population, reported that satisfaction with life and self‐confidence was higher in people aged 55 years or older than in younger people 27 . Mori et al ., who used SF36 on Japanese subjects, also reported similar findings to our own; age was related to physical as well as mental aspects of QOL 20…”

Daily activities mediate the relationship between personality and quality of life in middle-aged women

“…Female gender seems to be related to lower quality of life, as reported in virtually all populations studied, including patients with diabetes (1), asthma (2), musculoskeletal pain (3), coronary disease (4), schizophrenia (5) as well as he general population (6,7). This trend has been found for young (8) as well as older people (9).…”

“…In previous research, a high level of neuroticism has been found to be more strongly associated with worse quality of life (7,11,15). However, these studies did not test models of complex relations and could not identify possible mediators, such as depressive state and perceived health.…”