Revisiting the Disengagement Theory with Differentials in the Determinants of Life Satisfaction

This study proposes that differentials in the determinants of life satisfaction can be used to test if the elderly have a new equilibrium. One's global life satisfaction is taken as an indicator for one's inner world and for the elderly, global life satisfaction is assumed to be not influenced by life domains which indicate drastic social changes, because they are supposed to be disengaged from social activities. On the other hand, global life satisfaction for other adults is affected by life domains indicating social changes, because they are still tightly involved with social activities. The differentials in the determinants of global life satisfaction thus indicate that the elderly have a new equilibrium.A national survey on Taiwanese living conditions conducted by the Ministry of Interior, the Republic of China, in 1998 is used to test the above hypotheses. The analytical results show that the elderly have perceived drastic social changes. Moreover, they do have an equilibrium that is different from the other two age groups.     

长春市老年人口生活质量评价

针对我国老年人口生活质量的具体情况,利用国家人口和计划生育委员会与吉林大学"我国老年人生活状况及养老公共服务需求研究"长春市部分的调研数据,采用中华医学会老年医学流行病学学组会议提出的分等加权综合评分法,对长春市老年人口生活质量进行综合评价。将老年人口划分成不同年龄组及不同性别组,分别从经济生活、医疗健康生活、家庭与社会生活、精神生活方面进行老年人口生活质量评价。研究结果显示,长春市老年人口整体生活质量处于中等偏上的水平;女性老年人生活质量略低于男性老年人生活质量;老年人口的生活质量水平随年龄增大而降低。通过实证分析,综合把握长春市老年人口的生活质量现状,明确影响长春市老年人生活质量的相关因素,发现阻碍老年人口生活质量提高的不利因素,就改善长春市老年人生活质量提出对策建议。     

城市老人从事志愿者活动对自身主观幸福感的影响——基于北京市朝阳区的调查

老年人是改善自身生活质量的主体力量。已有的研究多从老年人被照顾角度着手,鲜有对老年人自身从事公益活动对自身主观幸福感的研究。本文利用2010年开展的“北京市朝阳区城乡老年人口状况追踪调查”所获得的数据和二元logistic回归模型来研究老年人以参与志愿者活动的形式为他人提供支持与其自身主观幸福感的关系。结果证明。参与志愿者活动的城市老年人与不参与志愿者活动的城市老年人相比,前者的主观幸福感水平比后者高。因此,本研究认为应该重视老年人在提高自身生活质量方面的能动性,为老人创造更多发挥潜能的机会。     

中国老年人口抑郁症状分析

抑郁对于老年人的身心健康和生活质量具有非常重要的影响,应引起家庭和社会的高度重视。2006年全国性的调查数据表明,我国老年人抑郁症状的发生率比较高,特别是在农村地区。不同健康、经济以及社会支持状况下老年人群的抑郁症状发生率及抑郁程度存在显著差别。因此,提高对老年人精神卫生工作的认识,尽快建立基层工作机制和干预机制是十分重要的。同时也应加强老年人心理问题的质性研究,以深化对老年人心理问题产生和影响机制的认识。     

Cross-Cultural Analyses of Determinants of Quality of Life and Mental Health: Results from the Eurohis Study

Recent projects on international instrument development have produced a wide array of health indicators that may be used for cross-cultural field-testing, however more information on their cross-cultural performance in relation to health determinants is necessary. The current study approaches one step for international conceptual validation by analysing the association between various health determinants and different types of health outcomes (mental health, quality of life) across a range of countries or geographical areas. The current study is based on the EUROHIS project that has been conducted in a sample of 4849 adults across 10 European countries. Results highlight that interactions between health determinants with subjective mental health, general health and quality of life (QoL) differ between Western European countries, Eastern European countries and the Newly Associated States as well as Israel. Using a MIMIC model approach, we were able to show that the impact of each of the sociodemographic variables cannot be interpreted on the basis of its single loading but only seeing the interacting with other indicators. Future studies should include sociodemographics in MIMIC models in each latent factor before carrying out regressions on a larger scale. Future investigations will require larger and representative samples to (a) test models on latent factors of mental health and QoL and (b) on the basis of these findings test overall structural models across countries.     

厦门市城区空巢老年人生活质量综合评析

空巢家庭的大量出现,是工业化、现代化进程中,经济发展、人口流动及人们价值观念转变等多种因素共同作用的结果。对空巢老年人生活质量的研究,应当区分不同居住类型进行全面的分析、比较,从而提出更有针对性的对策和建议。研究发现,厦门市空巢老年人的生活质量整体上低于非空巢老人,而夫妇二人家庭的空巢老年人生活质量与非空巢老年人群体并无显著差异：另外单身户老年人生活质量较低;住在养老机构老年人的生活质量远低于其他类型。     

城市空巢老人生活质量研究

基于2008年中国健康长寿调查数据,在考虑个体特征及社会支持变量的情况下,应用二分Logit模型,从不同的维度分析考察中国城市空巢老年人口生活质量状况。结果表明,城市空巢老人在生活自理能力、心理健康、健康自评及生活满意度等多个方面都与非空巢老人存在差异,他们的生活质量整体低于非空巢老年人口。     

Quality of Life of Institutionalized Elderly in Brazil

When considering the increasing proportion of institutionalized elderly and the aim of better quality of life for this growing population, it is necessary to know the quality of life for residents in nursing homes in Brazil, which is the purpose of this review. This is a simple review whose research was performed in electronic databases Journal Portal CAPES, Scopus and Bireme. The latter covers information about the subject registered in the SciELO, LILACS, MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library. Identified studies were assessed according to the following inclusion criteria: (1) population (institutionalized elderly in Brazil), (2) theme (quality of life) and (3) quantitative approach. According to this review, most studies that compared the quality of life of residents and nonresidents in nursing homes revealed that the institutionalized elderly have a worse perception of quality of life, possibly due to factors that cause the institutionalization and influence this self-perception, such as age, sex, education, lifestyle, autonomy and social participation. Among the domains evaluated in the questionnaire for quality of life the perception of autonomy and environmental aspects were the least satisfied by the institutionalized elderly. To improve the quality of life it is essential that the community living in the institutional space promote the autonomy of the elderly. Public policies that make a difference to the well being of older people need to be maintained, expanded and strengthened continuously to new strategies that respond to demands arising from rapid population aging and promote quality of life improvement.     

珠海市老年人生活质量研究

利用2010年珠海市的抽样调查资料,研究珠海市老年人的生活质量。研究结果表明,珠海市老年人的生活质量主要受老年人健康状况、经济收入、精神生活、医疗保险以及社区服务的影响。珠海市的8个城区中,高栏港的因子综合得分排名第一,香洲南屏排名第八。从5个因子的排名看,不同的城区有不同的特点,因此需要采取不同的措施提高老年人的生活质量。     

Good Health is Not the Same as a Good Life: Survey Results from Brandon,Manitoba

The aim of this investigation was to obtain some baseline self-reported data on the health status and overall quality of life of a sample of residents of the city of Brandon, Manitoba aged 18 years or older, and to measure the impact of a set of designated health determinants, comparison standards and satisfaction with diverse domains of life on their health and quality of life. In May and June 2010, 2,500 households from the city of Brandon, Manitoba were randomly selected to receive a mailed out questionnaire and 518 useable, completed questionnaires were returned. Baseline health status data were obtained using the 8 SF-36 dimensions of health and 13 items from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Determinants of health and overall quality of life included measures of socializing activities, a Good Neighbourhood Index, Social Support Index, Community Health Index, a measure of free-time exercise levels, health-related behaviours, use of drugs, health care issues, a set of domain-specific quality of life items, a set of measures concerning criminal victimization, worries and behaviours concerning victimization and the basic postulates of Multiple Discrepancies Theory. Overall life assessment, dependent variables included Average Health, happiness, a single item measure of satisfaction with life as a whole, a single item measure of satisfaction with the overall quality of life, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, Contentment with Life Assessment Scale and a Subjective Wellbeing Index. Using multiple regression, we explained as much as 75% of the variance in Subjective Wellbeing scores and as little as 45% in happiness scores. Four clusters of health determinants explained from 20% (Happiness) to 44% (Average Health) of the variance in the dependent variables. Adding comparison standards and domain satisfaction scores to the set of health determinants increased our total explanatory power by only 2% points for Average Health (from 44 to 46%), but more than doubled our explanatory power for Happiness (from 20 to 45%) and for satisfaction with the overall quality of life (from 31 to 67%). As well, our explanatory power for the single item of Life Satisfaction increased from 34 to 66%, for the Satisfaction With Life Scale from 39 to 74%, for the Contentment With Life Assessment Scale from 36 to 60%, and for Subjective Wellbeing from 42 to 75%. This provided very clear evidence that self-perceived good health is not equivalent to perceived quality of life, confirming evidence reported in our earlier studies. The three most important take-home messages from this investigation are (1) in assessing the relative influence of any alleged determinants of health and the quality of life, different sets of alleged determinants will appear to be more or less influential for different dependent variables. Therefore, (2) researchers should use diverse sets of determinants and dependent variables and (3) it is a big mistake to use measures of health status as if they were measures of the perceived quality of life.     

老年人口生活质量与社会支持的关系研究

国外不少研究表明社会支持(social support)与老年人的生活质量状态有着较强的相关性。本文基于2002年的中国健康长寿调查数据,在考虑人口社会特征和身体健康变量的情况下,应用Stereotype Ordinal Logit模型,从不同的维度分析考察了社会支持对中国老年人口生活质量的影响。结果表明,社会支持对老年人口生活质量的不同方面都有着积极的影响,而不同来源的社会支持对老年人生活质量产生不同程度的影响。     

城乡老年人生活质量与人口社会学特征关联初探

人口老龄化使我国老年人口数量迅速增长,呈现出老龄化+少子化的人口结构新常态。江苏省老龄化比例为20.57%,居全国各省区之首,老龄化区域和城乡差异也更加显著。兴化地区地处苏北农村,呈现小城市大农村结构,经济欠发达,城乡人群的生活水平差距较大。本研究目标人群为兴化城乡老年人群,通过调查城乡老年人群人口社会学和生活质量的变化特征和相关性,为政府和社会对老龄化事业的发展与决策提供依据。总计305例60岁以上的老年人群参与调查。结果显示,城市老年人群已婚、与子女住、文化程度、退休和自觉家庭经济情况良好等人口社会学特征维度好于农村人群（P≤0.01）;而农村丧偶、独居、没有工作和自觉家庭经济情况差等维度高于城市人群（P≤0.01）;男性老年人群文化程度显著高于女性（P<0.01）;冠心病患病构成比上,农村老年人群显著高于城市老年人群（P<0.01）,男性老年人群高于女性（P<0.05）;而女性老年人群患高脂血症构成比显著高于男性（P<0.01）。结果提示,兴化地区城乡老年人群生活质量差异显著,但城乡老年人群在躯体健康和疾病防治中的差异已经明显缩小,说明老年人生活质量的变化与人口社会学特征相关联。在经济持续发展和人口结构老龄化的新常态下,社会和家庭应更多地关注和改善老年人群,尤其是农村老年人群的生存环境,提高他们的生活质量。     

安徽农村老龄人口的生活质量：对主观评测数据的分析

基于2006年的问卷调查,本文对安徽农村老龄人口的生活质量进行了分析。研究发现农村老龄人口的生活质量与其退休前职业层级存在显著的正向关联,干部与专业人士的生活质量明显高于其他职业,而农民的生活质量最差。中国的农村老龄人口处在经济转轨与人口转轨的双向运动中,这对其生活质量造成了巨大的冲击。     

An Integrational Model of Quality of Life in Older Age. Results from the ESRC/MRC HSRC Quality of Life Survey in Britain

This paper is based on the results of anational survey of the quality of life of 999randomly sampled people aged 65 and over,living at home in Britain. The survey wassemi-structured, and a sample of surveyrespondents was followed up and interviewedin-depth in order to explore their perceptionsof quality of life in full. Comparisons aremade here between the results of (i) ahierarchical multiple regression model basedon theoretically derived indicators of survey respondents' ratings of their overall quality of life, with (ii) the samerespondents' own definitions of quality oflife, categorised from their responses toopen ended survey questions, and (iii) theviews of a sub-sample of these survey respondents who were subsequently interviewed in greater depth. Respondents were asked theopen ended questions on quality of life at theoutset of the survey interview in order toprevent any respondent bias from thestructured measures used.The core components, and the central planks,of quality of life, which were consistentlyemphasised by the three approaches, were psychological characteristics and outlook,health and functional status, personal andneighbourhood social capital. The lay modelsalso emphasised the importance of financialcircumstances and independence, which need tobe incorporated into a definition of broader quality of life.     

Subjective Values of Quality of Life Dimensions in Elderly People. A SEM Preference Model Approach

This article proposes a Thurstonian model in the framework of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to assess preferences among quality of life dimensions for the elderly. Data were gathered by a paired comparison design in a sample comprised of 323 people aged from 65 to 94 years old. Five dimensions of quality of life were evaluated: Health, Autonomy, Family and Social Support, Social Activities and Home Conditions. An unrestricted model was estimated and subjective preference values of dimensions were obtained. According to the subjective preferences, four groups of dimensions were established: Health-Autonomy-Home and Support-Social Activities. No differences among gender and age were found in the preference values.     

城市居家老人生活质量研究——以上海为例

本文针对城市居家老人的需要和特点,从评估城市居家老人生活质量的六个维度即经济状况与消费水平、居住条件与家庭设施、躯体健康与心理健康、社会支持、闲暇生活质量、生活满意度方面入手,深入开发了上海市老年人口状况与意愿跟踪调查数据资料,使用分等级加权评分法综合评估了城市居家老人生活质量以及分性别和年龄的老人生活质量。     

What is Happening with Quality of Life Among the Oldest People in Southern European Countries? An Empirical Approach Based on the SHARE Data

Population aging in developed countries has created new challenges to improve the well-being of individuals at different age cohorts. This issue is especially significant for Southern European countries, were aging societies have worse health and less socio-economic resources. The aim of this study is to contribute to this body of literature and to estimate the effect of aging on quality of life of oldest people. This paper uses the latest available data (6th wave) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Specifically, robust ordinary least squares and multilevel regressions are employed to analyse the effects of socioeconomic, health, and community factors on quality of life among the oldest population for Southern European countries. Our findings confirm the significance of several factors on life satisfaction among the oldest population in this group of countries. Moreover, we show that the determinants which are correlated with quality of life include predisposing, health, geographic area and social isolation factors.     

Impact of Individual and Organizational Variables on Quality of Life

The general goal of this study consists of analyzing the influence of different types of human services in the quality of life of their nested users. Several multilevel models were proposed to test for significant differences not only in the overall quality of life score, but also in each of the eight core domains. Participants included 11,624 users of social and human services and the assessment quality of life instrument was the GENCAT Scale. Variables that were studied in the different models were gender, age, and diagnostic group (elderly, intellectual disability, physical disability, mental health problems, and chemical dependency) at the individual user level (level 1: individual), while type of services—in terms of the main population addressed by their supports (i.e. the aforementioned groups)—was studied at service level (level 2: organizational). In order to explain differences, individual characteristics were introduced first, types of services were introduced next, and finally joint individual and service variables were introduced in a single model. The main results of this study were that personal and organizational variables exhibited a different level of influence on users’ quality of life; and also that the type of services significantly influenced the quality of life of its users. The results of this study lead to practical implications for services providing support to these diagnostic groups, especially for those interested in managing, assessing, and improving quality of life related personal outcomes at the user level as well as quality enhancement at the organizational level.     

The Relative Contribution of Health Status and Quality of Life Domains in Subjective Health in Old Age

To analyze the influence of different health status dimensions and quality of life (QoL) domains on older adults’ subjective health, and to assess the role that residential satisfaction plays in these relationships. A QoL survey was conducted on a representative sample of the community-dwelling older adult population in Madrid province (Spain). Logistic regression models were applied to studying: the health status dimensions associated with satisfaction with health; the relationship between satisfaction with health and other QoL domains; and, the influence of these domains on satisfaction with life. Sociodemographic and residential characteristics were included in all the models. The determinants of satisfaction with health in the first model were: mobility, usual activities, morbidity, and satisfaction with neighborhood. QoL domains associated with health were: leisure activities, neighborhood, and finances. Satisfaction with life was explained by these three domains, along with age, family and health. In sum, leisure, neighborhood, and finances showed a positive effect on satisfaction with health and with life.