Abstract
BackgroundThe proportion of people living to a very old age is continuously increasing. One of the possibilities explored in policies and services to meet this health and societal challenge is to encourage the very old to continue living at home. This initiative is in line with the wishes of most elderly people. However, owing to the great changes that occur during old age attention should be paid to health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The aims of this study were to assess HRQoL in French community-dwelling people aged 80 years and over and to investigate the sociodemographic and health characteristics and life events associated with HRQoL.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in France to assess the HRQoL of people aged 80 years or more living at home. All people recruited were sent a letter explaining the aim of the study and requesting their consent to take part. Those who accepted then received a series of sociodemographic and medical questionnaires, a questionnaire concerning life events of the previous 12 months and the LEIPAD questionnaire, which assesses HRQoL in elderly people.ResultsThe data of 184 participants (54.9% female) with a mean age of 83.9 years (almost 40% older than 85 years), were analysed. Low scores, indicating better HRQoL, were obtained on the ‘Self-Care’ and ‘Depression and Anxiety’ scales with 50.9 and 40.8% of responders, respectively, having the minimum score of zero. The highest score was found on the ‘Sexual Functioning’ scale, with 59.1% of participants having the maximum score of 100. Elderly females declared a significantly less satisfactory HRQoL. Deteriorating health, an unsatisfactory environment, not being able to drive, perceived modest income and financial worries negatively affected HRQoL.ConclusionIdentifying factors in our study that are potential determinants of HRQoL would be of direct benefit for individuals. Concrete public policy initiatives concerning means of transport, living environment and financial resources could then be implemented to improve the HRQoL of very old community-dwelling individuals.
Highlights
The proportion of people living to a very old age is continuously increasing
It is the first to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of community-dwelling people aged 80 years and over with the use of a self-administered questionnaire adapted to elderly people (EP), the LEIPAD scale
Our findings showed that the female participants had specific problems related to ageing that could in part explain their less satisfactory HRQoL: they were older than the men, more often widowed and living alone, had a perceived modest income, were less likely to be driving and were suffering from significantly more health problems, as reported in previous studies [27, 31, 37], in particular diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue and mental and behavioural disorders [50, 51]
Summary
One of the possibilities explored in policies and services to meet this health and societal challenge is to encourage the very old to continue living at home. This initiative is in line with the wishes of most elderly people. To meet the challenges that come with this trend, one of the areas of interest explored in policies and services is to encourage living in the community until very old age This is in line with the wishes of most older people in Western countries, who prefer to live in their own familiar environment as long as possible rather than in institutions [3,4,5]. In 2014, total life expectancy at 65 years was 18.2 years, including 8.6 years with no activity restrictions for men, and 21.6 years, including 8.6 with no activity restrictions for women [6]
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