Factors associated with older adults’ quality of life

Abstract

Background:

The COVID-19 situation could be considered as an uncontrollable stressful life event. It may exert an impact on their quality of life (QoL). Not only COVID related variables, sociodemographic characteristics, health and appraisal but also personal resources could have an impact on QoL.

Research Objective:

This study aims to assess the association between QoL and sociodemographic characteristics (sex, age), levels of health (physical health, emotional distress, and psychological well-being), COVID-19 related variables (having got infected, having lost a loved person, being hospitalized or having had a loved one hospitalized), appraisal (fear of COVID-19 outbreak), personal resources (family function, resilience, acceptance and gratitude).

Method:

QoL was assessed in all participants using CASP-19. A regression model was tested. 361 older adults in Spain participated in this study. The average age was 68.44 (SD= 5.31) and 62.8% were women (N= 227) and 58.2% were married (N= 210).

Preliminary results on the ongoing study:

The results suggest that the nature of the COVID-19 may not be as relevant for the older adults’ QoL as their levels of health, personal resources for managing COVID related and emotional status. We found that the older adults QoL increased when increased the levels of health, acceptance, gratitude, personal growth, and purpose in life and when there were lower scores in anxiety and depression. This model explained 66.4% of variance. In contrast, COVID-19 variables or appraisal did not show any association with QoL.

Conclusion:

A better understanding of the factors associated with QoL could help health professionals to develop interventions that enhance it. Efforts to address older adults’ QoL focusing on older adults’ personal resources, perceived health and emotional status should be considered.