| Research Abstract |
As Japan is getting toward an aging society, it is very important to make researches into quality of life (QOL) for Japanese elderly. We have investigated QOL using WHOQOL-OLD (Japanese version), and determined relationship between QOL and social background or personality of the elderly. [Methods] One hundred and nine Japanese elderly aged 70 years and older (58 men, 51 women, mean age 76.3 years), living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, were enrolled in this study. We used WHOQOL-OLD to evaluate QOL and NEO-FFI to evaluate the Big Five Factor of personality. QOL is composed of 6 facets, that is, Sensory abilities, Autonomy, Past, present and future activities, Social participation, Death and dying, and Intimacy, and each facet scores 1 to 5. The Big Five Factor of personality consists of five domains, that, is Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness (O), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C). We also assessed family members, education, job, economic status, relationship between
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family members, health condition, and habitus as social background. [Results] The mean QOL score was 3. 4 and there was no significant difference between men and women. The QOL score of Sensory abilities and Autonomy was high and the QOL score of Death and dying and Intimacy was low. A multiple linear regression showed positive association between QOL and "good familial relationship" (men; R^2=0.480, β 0.568, p<0.001, women; R^2=0.435, β=0.406, p<0.05). There was also positive association between QOL and E and C among men (E; R^2=0.374, β=0.344, p<0.05, C; R^2=0.374, β=0.254, p<0.05). There was negative association between QOL and N among women (R^2=0.493, β=-0.489, p<0.01). It seems that the personality trait which associated with high QOL among elderly men is compatible with the character of the oldest old who achieved healthy aging. On the other hand, it is important to prevent depression to achieve high QOL among elderly women. We classified QOL into 3 groups (All High; AH, High Sensory; HS, and Low Sensory; LS), and personality into 2 groups (Low N; LN and High N; HN) using cluster analysis. LN showed higher QOL score than HN. LN showed AH pattern, while HN showed LS pattern. LS pattern is considered to be impaired adaptation to aging, suggesting that adaptation to aging is one of the essential factors for better QOL among the elderly. Less
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