The Survey Research On The Quality Of Life And Its Influence Factors In The Elderly In Urban Communities In Changchun City

Objective:1. To have a knowledge of the current situation of the quality of life (QOL) of the elderly through the investigation and analysis of their QOL in the communities in Changchun City.2. To investigate and analyze the influence factors of QOL of the elderly in the communities in Changchun and put forward some suggestions for improving their QOL.3. To provide a scientific base on which some related polices of health services are made for the elderly in communities in Changchun.Methods:1. Sampling The two communities were chosen in the non-probability, 500 elderly were sampled randomly as the subjects, and the questionnaire investigation was carried out by face-to-face interviewing through the phone appointment and family visiting. Totally 500 elderly were visited and 489 valid pieces of questionnaires was obtained, 97.8% validly.2. Design and election of questionnaires The questionnaire of satisfactory degree of community medical and nursing services was self-designed and WHOQOL-BREF was chosen as the questionnaire of QOL of the elderly in communities. WHOQOL-BREF is admitted by our government. It includes four domains of Physical Domain(PHD),Psychological Domain(PSD), Social Relation Domain(SRD) and Environment Domain(ED), 2 independent analyzing items. The higher the scores, the better the QOL.3. Training personnel and pre-investigation All people who took part in the investigation were trained and pre-investigation was carried out. Once the questions were discovered and at once the questionnaire self-designed was adjusted and perfected to ensure the results were complete, authentic and reliant.4. Statistical methods The conversion formulas of WHOQOL-BREF were used to calculate scores of four domains, x±s was used to describe all data statistically, t-test and variance analysis were used to do the single-factor analysis, stepwise regression analysis was used to do the multi-factor analysis, and SPSS12.0 for windows software was applied for data processing.α=0.05. Results:1. In QOL of the elderly, the proportion equal to and higher than medium level of self-evaluation on QOL and health status is 92.0% and 82.4%; the average evaluation scores by self is higher than that by four domains(P<0.001).2. In four domains, the scores of 54.5%～83.7% of the elderly mainly varies from 50 to 80,and the scores of more than 68.4% is equal to and higher than 50.3. Gender, age, marital status, education level, occupation, family average income monthly, chronic diseases and satisfactory degree of community medical and nursing services influence QOL of the elderly in varying degrees. The female scores in SRD is higher than the male (P<0.05); the scores the elderly got in PHD, PSD and ED became lower with ageing (P<0.05); the scores of the elderly who have spouse is higher in PHD, PSD and SRD than who have not(P<0.05); the scores in PSD and ED became lower with the decline of education level (P<0.001); the scores the elderly with different occupations got in PSD,SRD and ED are very different(P<0.001); the scores the elderly with higher income got in PSD,SRD and ED are also higher (P<0.05); the scores the elderly with chronic diseases got in PHD and PSD are lower than the elderly without chronic diseases and the elderly with several diseases got are lower than the elderly with only one disease(P<0.001);The scores the elderly who are satisfied greatly with the community medical and nursing services got in PHD, PSD and ED are also higher(P<0.001).The result of the multi-factor analysis showed that: age, chronic diseases, marital status, education level, occupation, family average income monthly are main influence factors of QOL of the elderly.Conclusions:1. The QOL of the elderly in communities in Changchun City is in the medium level or above, and need improving further.2. The satisfactory degree with community health and nursing services of the elderly in communities in Changchun still needs improving further.3. The elderly in communities in Changchun feel better in QOL. It indicates that QOL of the elderly in communities in Changchun has been better than before.4. Changchun is facing a series of issues of ageing population. Therefore, the local government should offer help from the social polices and social support.5. There are many factors influencing QOL of the elderly, and in the paper the influence factors of QOL of the elderly is only initiatively studied and there are many other factors which need further discussing.