Factors Affecting The Quality Of Life In Elderly

Abstract

Descriptive research aimed 1) to compare the quality of life in the elderly with different age, educational level, income, family characteristics and membership of the elderly club, 2) to find the power to predict the quality of life in the elderly. 200 elderly were sample group, aged 60 years with caretaker and over by randomly selecting 10 out of 24 communities in Sathorn area. There were eight tools, including stress and mental health assessments of the Department of Mental Health 2 sets with reliability equal .720 and .852. Quality of life assessment form of the World Health Organization, 1 set had a reliability equal .846, and the research team developed another 5 sets as questionnaires on a 5-level estimation scale to determine the quality of these 5 tools through 3 experts, checking the consistency of the questions with the measurement objectives, got IOC=.67-1.00. Find reliability by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient was family relationship, self-esteem, religious doctrine, internal-external locus of control, society participation, which was .845, .896, .810, .813 and .927 respectively. The statistical analysis was t-test, F-test, correlation coefficient and multiple regression stepwise. The results were 1) elderly 60-69 years had better quality of life than those 80-89 years old. Higher education levels had better quality of life than low education levels. The quality of life of the single-family elderly was better than the extended family. There was no difference in quality of life of income and the elderly club membership. 2) The power to predict the quality of life of the elderly, it was found that all psychological factors predicted the quality of life of the elderly were 26.0% (R2=.260, t=2.93,), were self-esteem (β=.31) stress (β=-.23) and social participation (β= .19) statistically significant at the .01 level.