Quality of life of older adults in Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors affecting the quality of life of the elderly people in Turkey. Three-hundred community-dwelling older adults (Mage=68.35, SD=5.80 years) participated in this study. The quality of life was examined through World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire-Older Adults Module Turkish Version (WHOQOL-OLD Turkish). Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) showed significant age differences in sensory abilities, social participation, and intimacy sub-scale scores. Post hoc Scheffe Test results indicated that elderly people aged 75 years and over differed from other age groups; although their scores in social participation and intimacy were lower; they had higher scores in sensory abilities than those aged 60-65 and 66-74 years. There were significant differences between the educational levels of these elderly people in sensory abilities, autonomy, past-present-and-future activities, social participation, and death-and-dying sub-scales. The autonomy, past-present-and-future activities, social participation, and death-and-dying scores of those with high school education were higher than that of those with secondary school or less education except in sensory abilities scores. There were differences found between the variable of with whom the elderly people lived and of QOL sub-scales of the elderly people's sensory abilities, past-today-and-future activities, death-and-dying, social participation, and intimacy. In addition, the total average score of the QOL sub-scales with the sufficiency of income of the elderly people were interconnected. In conclusion, the findings revealed that gender, age, education, marital status, childbearing, social insurance, health status, living arrangement and income variables are the determinant to improving the quality of life of elderly people.

Keywords: Elderly; Quality of life; Turkish older adults; WHOQOL-OLD.