Abstract
BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to investigate the association between serum folate concentration and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among the elderly in South Korea.Materials and methodsThe data used in this study were drawn from 1,021 participants over 65 years old in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2016–2018. HRQOL was measured by the EQ-5D questionnaire. Participants were divided into tertiles of folate concentration (ranges 1.7–5.6, 5.7–9.4, and 9.5–31.9 ng/mL). We performed multivariable linear regression to examine the relationship between folate and HRQOL, and multivariable logistic regression to examine the relationship between folate and the dimensional problem of HRQOL.ResultsHigher folate concentrations were significantly associated with higher HRQOL in the elderly. The average HRQOL score of the elderly in the highest tertile of the folate level was 0.0289 higher than that of the lowest tertile (coefficient: 0.0289; 95% CI 0.0016, 0.0563). The HRQOL score increased by 0.0174 points when the folate concentration increased by 100%. When analyzing specific dimensions, a significant association with folate concentration was found only for the self-care dimension of HRQOL (odds ratio for self-care problems: 0.63; 95% CI 0.41, 0.99).ConclusionsThe elderly with higher serum folate concentration tended to have higher HRQOL. Among HRQOL dimensions, self-care was only significantly associated with folate concentration.
Highlights
An increasing number of studies have focused on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) as its importance has grown [1,2,3]
Higher folate concentrations were significantly associated with higher HRQOL in the elderly
The average HRQOL score of the elderly in the highest tertile of the folate level was 0.0289 higher than that of the lowest tertile
Summary
An increasing number of studies have focused on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) as its importance has grown [1,2,3]. Testa et al [4] and McDonald et al [5] proposed that HRQOL is a multidimensional concept that includes areas related to physical, mental, emotional and social functions. The authors of the latter study emphasized that HRQOL focuses on the impact of an individual’s health status on their quality of life [5]. The EQ-5D-3L is designed to let participants choose one of the three levels (e.g., no, some, or severe problem) based on the severity of each dimension. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between serum folate concentration and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among the elderly in South Korea
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