Study On The Influencing Pathway Between Socio-economic Status And Quality Of Life

ObjectUnder the guidance of the health ecological model,this study explored the influence pathway between socio-economic status and quality of life of the elderly,with socioeconomic status as independent variables,social support and lifestyles as intermediate variables,and quality of life as dependent variable.MethodsIn this study,9,000 elderly people aged 60 and over were selected from 11 prefecturelevel cities in Shanxi Province by random cluster sampling.The questionnaire,using for data collection,involved of general information,socio-economic status,36-Item Short-Form Health Survey(SF-36),Social Support Rating Scale(SSRS)and Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile(HPLP-C).8,526 valid questionnaires were recovered finally.T-test,one-way ANOVA and other methods were used to compare statistical differences for quality of life on different demographic characteristics.The relationships between the four main variables were examined by Pearson correlation analysis.Under the guidance of the health ecological model,a multiple mediating theoretical model was constructed,and the fit between the theoretical model and the actual data was verified using Mplus7.0 software.Finally,the significances of the mediating effects were tested by the Bootstrap program.ResultsThe total score of quality of life was(124.56 ± 33.02).The income score was(2.14 ± 1.04).The education level score was(1.42 ± 0.59).The health promoting lifestyles' score was(105.99 ± 19.61).The social support score was(37.97 ± 7.49).The outcome of common method deviation test showed that homogeneous variance was not the main reason for the coordinated change of the variables,and further data analysis could be performed.There were prominent differences for scores of the quality of life by different genders,ages and living areas(P <0.05).It can be considered that the quality of life of the elderly was significantly related to the three basic characteristics.In addition,socio-economic status,social support,lifestyles,and quality of life also had significant and positive correlations with each other in their total score and even each dimension score(P <0.01).The fitting results of the multiple mediating theoretical model and the actual data showed that the indicators met the required adaptation criteria,suggesting that the theoretical model can be accepted.The Bootstrap test showed that the mediating effects of hypothetical three indirect paths were all significant.Socio-economic status can affect the quality of life through one direct path and three indirect mediating paths.The four paths included: direct path,socio-economic status ? quality of life(c),with an effect value of 0.162,accounting for 50.5% of the total effect;indirect path 1,socio-economic status ? social support ? quality of life(a1b1),with an effect value of 0.086,constituting 26.8% of the total effect;the indirect path 2,socio-economic status ? lifestyles ? quality of life(a2b2),with an effect value of 0.046,accounting for 14.3% of the total effect;indirect path 3,socioeconomic status ? social support ? lifestyles ? quality of life(a1d1b2),with an effect value of 0.027,occupying 8.4% of the total effect.ConclusionsThe influencing pathway of the socio-economic status of the elderly on the quality of life involved two ways: direct role and indirect mediating role.There were four paths: i.socioeconomic status can directly exert an influence on quality of life;ii.socio-economic status can indirectly influence quality of life through the mediating role of social support;iii.socioeconomic status can indirectly predict quality of life through the mediating role of lifestyles;v.socio-economic status can also indirectly predict the quality of life of the elderly through serial mediation by social support and lifestyles.Social support and lifestyles serving as mediating factors between socio-economic status and quality of life,showed the complexity of the influencing mechanism system of the quality of life.It was suggested that intervention measures aimed towards improving social support and lifestyles would be beneficial to increase quality of life in the elderly with lower socio-economic status.