Evaluation of life satisfaction index of the elderly people living in nursing homes

The aim of our study was to evaluate the quality of life of the elderly living in nursing homes. A pool of 183 elderly people living in nursing homes were involved in the study. Data regarding the socio-demographic characteristics and life satisfaction index-A (LSI-A) of the participants were collected by means of a questionnaire during face-to-face interviews. The average LSI-A score of the whole group of participants was 25.26 +/- 5.51. When the mean LSI-A score of participants in relation to their independent variables was analyzed, no statistically significant differences were found for gender, socio-economic status or body mass indexes (BMI). However, the mean LSI-A score of those elderly people who spent some time in leisure activities was significantly higher than those who did not (p = 0.03). In the stepwise linear regression analysis, the education level and place of residence were found to be the statistically significant independent predictors of LSI-A scores in the study group (p = 0.05, p = 0.001). (c) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved