Quality of life of rural poor elderly in Anhui, China

This study is to explore the quality of life (QoL) of the rural poor elderly in central China (Anhui province) and the influencing factors. A multi-stage random sampling method was used to extract 3352 effective samples of the rural elderly in Anhui, including 1206 poor and 2146 non-poor elderly subjects. Euro QoL 5-dimension questionnaire (EQ-5D) was used for the measurement of QoL. Descriptive statistics and χ(2) test were used to compare and analyze the sociodemographic characteristics and QoL scores between poor and non-poor elderly. Multiple linear regression was used to assess the influencing factors of QoL. There were significant differences in gender, age, education levels, professions, chronic diseases, physical discomfort within 2 weeks, hospitalization within 1 year, economic sources, and migrant workers between the rural poor and non-poor elderly groups. The QoL of rural poor elderly scored significantly higher than the non-poor elderly, in all these five dimensions. The average EuroQol Visual Analogue Scale (EQ-VAS) of poor elderly was 65.689, lower than the non-poor elderly (71.039). After controlling the confounding factors, there was a significant statistical difference in the total utility score of EQ-5D between the poor and non-poor elderly groups. The QoL of poor elderly in central China is lower than non-poor elderly, with the worst dimension of pain/discomfort. The QoL of rural poor elderly in this area could be affected by many factors, to which more attention should be paid.