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Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders

Objectives: To explore the association of formal and informal social support with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Chinese rural elders and further investigate the influence of quantity and quality of social support on their HRQOL. Methods: The sample of 4189 Chinese rural elders over 60...

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Autores principales: Lu, Shan, Wu, Yupan, Mao, Zongfu, Liang, Xiaohui
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32093116
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17041351
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author Lu, Shan
Wu, Yupan
Mao, Zongfu
Liang, Xiaohui
author_facet Lu, Shan
Wu, Yupan
Mao, Zongfu
Liang, Xiaohui
author_sort Lu, Shan
collection PubMed
description Objectives: To explore the association of formal and informal social support with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Chinese rural elders and further investigate the influence of quantity and quality of social support on their HRQOL. Methods: The sample of 4189 Chinese rural elders over 60 years old was acquired from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The HRQOL was evaluated by EQ-5D-3L questionnaire. The social support assessment was mainly based on the social support rating scale (SSRS), and Tobit regression analysis was used to explore the impact of social support on HRQOL. Results: The average EQ-5D index score (0 to 1) of the Chinese rural elders was 0.78 ± 0.16. Participants who were male or with better education were found to have higher scores. Those elders living alone, suffering from chronic diseases or disabled acquired lower scores. As for formal social support, higher medical or pension insurance and more social activities statistically significantly possessed higher scores. As for informal social support, higher number of offspring had a significant association with lower scores, while more contact with children and financial support from family were shown to be statistically significantly associated with higher scores after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. The quality of social support is more important than its quantity. An interesting finding was that the EQ-5D index scores did not support the Chinese traditional belief that ‘the more children, the more blessings’. Conclusions: The EQ-5D index scores of the rural elders in China is above the median level based on the scores of EQ-5D. Social support is significantly associated with elderly peoples’ quality of life. The results would be significant for accurately improving the life quality of Chinese rural elders from the perspective of social support.
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spelling pubmed-70683162020-03-19 Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders Lu, Shan Wu, Yupan Mao, Zongfu Liang, Xiaohui Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Objectives: To explore the association of formal and informal social support with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Chinese rural elders and further investigate the influence of quantity and quality of social support on their HRQOL. Methods: The sample of 4189 Chinese rural elders over 60 years old was acquired from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The HRQOL was evaluated by EQ-5D-3L questionnaire. The social support assessment was mainly based on the social support rating scale (SSRS), and Tobit regression analysis was used to explore the impact of social support on HRQOL. Results: The average EQ-5D index score (0 to 1) of the Chinese rural elders was 0.78 ± 0.16. Participants who were male or with better education were found to have higher scores. Those elders living alone, suffering from chronic diseases or disabled acquired lower scores. As for formal social support, higher medical or pension insurance and more social activities statistically significantly possessed higher scores. As for informal social support, higher number of offspring had a significant association with lower scores, while more contact with children and financial support from family were shown to be statistically significantly associated with higher scores after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. The quality of social support is more important than its quantity. An interesting finding was that the EQ-5D index scores did not support the Chinese traditional belief that ‘the more children, the more blessings’. Conclusions: The EQ-5D index scores of the rural elders in China is above the median level based on the scores of EQ-5D. Social support is significantly associated with elderly peoples’ quality of life. The results would be significant for accurately improving the life quality of Chinese rural elders from the perspective of social support. MDPI 2020-02-19 2020-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7068316/ /pubmed/32093116 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17041351 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lu, Shan
Wu, Yupan
Mao, Zongfu
Liang, Xiaohui
Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title_full Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title_fullStr Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title_full_unstemmed Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title_short Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
title_sort association of formal and informal social support with health-related quality of life among chinese rural elders
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32093116
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17041351
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