Factors influencing quality of life of elders in Chiang Khwan district, Roi Et province, Thailand

Abstract

This study was a descriptive study to learn about demographic data, such as gender, age, marital status, income, sufficiency of income, basic life factors social environment factors relationship with the health factors, as well as quality of life of the elderly in Chiangkhwan District, Roi-Et Province,Thailand. The 400 samples were the elderly over 60 years of age whose name and houses were in Chiangkhwan District. Systematic sampling was used. The research tool was the interview questionnaire with reliability value of 0.80. Data collection period was from June to July 2010. For data analysis, frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were employed. The relationship among variables used to Chi-square test. The results revealed that most of the samples were females 60% and males 40%. Average age was 68.74 years, minimum 60 years and maximum 91 years. They were married 60.25% with an average income of 3,221.75 baht per month. They still performed their occupation 56.25% mostly in agriculture. For basic life factors of the elderly, most of them 56% still took raw food. For housing, most of the samples had firm houses more than 5 years service time for 93%. In terms of clothing, the samples had enough to wear 84%. For medical treatment, 84.50% of the samples first used the services at health centers. The samples got good services 81.50% from healthcare work force. For social environment factors, most of the samples 88.50% got information from television. In regards to relationship in the community, participated in religious activities 62%. For health aspect, most of the sample did not have any illness 74.50% and did not have any chronic illness 66.25%. For the quality of life of the samples, they had moderate level of physical and psychological aspects with and good level of social and environmental aspects. Overall average of the samples quality of life was good. Factors influencing the samples of quality of life were gender (p-value = 0.050), age (p-value = 0.019), occupation (p-value = 0.003), suitable job (p-value = 0.022), clothing (p-value = 0.001), medical treatment (p-value = 0.001), participate in the communication (p-value = 0.001), and general health (p-value = 0.001), with statistical significance at 0.05.