Background: Elder abuse and its effects are a serious public health issue. However, little is known about therelation between psychological abuse, other factors (e.g. social support) and quality of life (QoL) by domain. This studyaddressed differences in QoL by domain between psychologically abused and non-abused. While considering otherfactors such as social support. Methods: The respondents were 4,467 (2,559 women) randomly selected persons aged 60-84 years living in7 European cities. The mean response across countries was 45.2%. The cross-sectional data were analyzed withbivariate/multivariate methods. Results: Abused respondents contrasted to non-abused scored lower in QoL (autonomy, 67.42 ± 21.26 vs. 72.39± 19.58; intimacy, 55.31 ± 31.15 vs. 67.21 ± 28.55; past/present/future activities, 62.79 ± 19.62 vs. 68.05 ± 18.09;social participation, 65.03 ± 19.84 vs. 68.21 ± 19.77). Regressions showed that abuse was negatively associated withautonomy, intimacy and past/present/future activities, and positively with the social participation. All QoL dimensionswere negatively associated with country and depressive/anxiety symptoms, and positively with social support. Further,variables such as age, sex and somatic symptoms were negatively associated with some of the QoL dimensions andothers such as family structure, education, health care use and drinking positively. The regression model “explained”32.8% of the variation in autonomy, 45.6% in intimacy, 44.8% in past/present/future activities and 41.5% in socialparticipation. Conclusions: Abuse was linked to lower QoL in most domains, but other factors such as depressive symptomsalso carried a negative impact. Social support and to some extent family structure had a “protective” effect on QoL.Abuse, health indicators (e.g. depressive symptoms) and social support should be considered in addressing the QoL ofolder persons. However, QoL was influenced by many factors, which could not be firmly disentangled due to the crosssectionalapproach, calling for longitudinal research to address causality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-18658 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Soares, Joaquim JF, Sundin, Örjan, Viitasara, Eija, Melchiorre, Maria Gabriella, Stankunas, Mindaugas, Lindert, Jutta, Torres-Gonzales, Francisco, Barros, Henrique, Ioannidi-Kapolou, Elisabeth |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för hälsovetenskap, Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för psykologi, Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för hälsovetenskap, Italian National Institute of Health and Science on Aging, INRCA, Ancona, Italy, Department of Health Management, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania, Department of Public Health Science, Protestant University of Applied Sciences, Ludwigsburg, Germany, Network of Biomedical Research on Mental Health Centers, University of Granada, Spain, Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Porto, Medical School, Porto, Portugal, Department of Sociology, National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article in journal, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Journal of Biosafety and Health Education, 2013, 1:1, s. 1-12 |
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