Quality Of Life And Related Factors Among Elderly Residents In Long-term Care Facilities

Objectives To confirm the construct validity of the revised quality of life scale for residents in long-term care facilities,and to describe the actuality of quality of life(QOL)of the residents,as well as to explore the related factors that might affect the QOL of the elderly in long-term care facilities.Methods The research was conducted among the elderly in long-term care facilities in the city of Jinan from May to September in 2016,with the cross-sectional questionnaire investigation.In all mails out 376 questionnaires,acquires 371 effective questionnaires.The contents of investigation were:the general information of the elderly and the facility,vision,hearing,mastication,nutrition,sleep,urine incontinence,ability of daily living(ADL),frail,depression,anxiety,loneliness,social support,social activity participation,and their QOL.The construct validity of the QOL scale was conducted with Amos 19.0,the reliability analysis and criterion validity analysis of the QOL scale,as well as the analysis of associated factors of QOL were conducted with SPSS 19.0.The statistics included:the descriptive statistics,independent sample t test,analysis of variance(ANOVA),Chi-squared test,Pearson correlation,Spearman correlation,multiple linear regression,binary logistic regression,structural equations modeling.Results1.With construct validity analysis,the revised quality of life scale for residents in long-term care facilities was composed of 38 items,belonging to nine dimensions.The Cronhbch’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.891 with those of nine dimensions between 0.661 to 0.897.The confirmatory factor analysis results showed χ2=990.365,χ2/df=1.590,NFI=0.859,NNFI=0.934,IFI=0.943,CFI=0.942,RMSEA=0.040.The criterion validity analysis results showed that the 9 dimension were associated with EQ-VAS score,and 7 dimension were correlated with EQ-5D utility.2.The present situation of the QOL:the elderly had the highest score in autonomy dimension,and the lowest score in security dimension.With the health-related quality of life(HRQOL),most residents had problems in usual activity(60.1%),followed by the mobility(56.3%).The mean score of their self-rated health on EQ-VAS was 66.08±22.34。3.Multiple linear regression showed:among individual factors,age,gender,frail,sleep,depression,loneliness,anxiety,social network,social activity participation,the frequency of children visits;and attach to hospitals,outdoor living space among facility factors predicted the residents’ quality of life.Sleep,comorbidities,anxiety,and social activity participation were related to their self-rated health status(EQ-VAS).Binary logistic regression showed that age,frail,activity of daily living,social activity participation and living-room arrangement were associated with residents’ health-related quality of life(EQ-5D).Conclusions1.Quality of life scale for residents in long-term care facilities was proved to have good psychometric characteristics and can be applied in the long-term care facilities context.2.Residents in long-term care facilities had low quality of life.3.The quality of life among residents in long-term care facilities were influenced by individual-and facility-factors.The staff were suggested to recognize the influence factors and provide better prevention for the elderly.