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Quality of life among community-dwelling older adults: evidence from a large population-based study in rural Sri Lanka

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Abstract

Purpose

Against the backdrop of the ever-increasing aging population in Sri Lanka and the scarcity of local evidence on quality of life (QoL) among rural elderly, this study was conducted to assess the QoL of the community-dwelling older adults in rural Sri Lanka.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted among community-dwelling older adults (60–74 years) in a selected rural setting in Sri Lanka. K-means cluster analysis was used to stratify participants into 'low' and 'high' levels of QoL and then significant associations between these clusters and underlying socio-demographic and self-reported health related factors were estimated using bivariate and subsequent multivariable binary logistic regression models.

Results

The final sample consisted of 3573 community-dwelling older adults (response rate 97.8%). The mean (SD) age of the sample was 66.7 (4.3) years and the majority were females (n = 2130, 59.6%). Amongst the six QoL domains assessed (physical, psychological, social, functional, environmental and spiritual domains), the highest and the lowest mean (SD) scores were reported for the functional [63.4 (16.9)] and the physical [52.9 (15.0)] domains, respectively. Aged 70 years or more, either unmarried/widowed/divorced, lower educational levels and having chronic illnesses were statistically significant associations of QoL (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

The QoL among community-dwelling older adults in rural Sri Lanka is moderate. As having social support, absence of chronic diseases and good education level were found to be associated with better QoL, strengthening community-based interventions to improve these aspects by incorporating the evidence generated by other longitudinal studies is recommended.

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Acknowledgements

Authors wish to acknowledge all study participants for their support and all ten Community Health Promotion Officers in the Ayurvedic Community Health Promotion Service, Thalawa, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, Saliyapura, 50008, Sri Lanka

    Nuwan Darshana Wickramasinghe & Suneth Buddhika Agampodi

  2. Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, Colombo 07, 00700, Sri Lanka

    Himali Erandathie Ratnayake

  3. Ayurvedic Community Health Promotion Service, Thalawa, Anuradhapura, 50000, Sri Lanka

    Rasika Amali Perera

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  1. Nuwan Darshana Wickramasinghe
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Contributions

NDW conceptualized the study. SBA, RAP and HER contributed to the study design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by NDW. RAP contributed to the data collection. SBA contributed to the material preparation. HER contributed to the data analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by NDW and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nuwan Darshana Wickramasinghe.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Review Committee of the Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka (ERC/2019/06).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Wickramasinghe, N.D., Ratnayake, H.E., Perera, R.A. et al. Quality of life among community-dwelling older adults: evidence from a large population-based study in rural Sri Lanka. Qual Life Res 32, 93–103 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-022-03230-y

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