How Important Is Health Status in Defining Quality of Life for Older People? An Exploratory Study of the Views of Older South Australians

Older adults (n = 21) from a day rehabilitation facility in Southern Adelaide, South Australia attended one of two audio-recorded focus groups. A mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) study design was adopted. The study included three main components. First was a general group discussion on quality of life and the factors of importance in defining quality of life. Second was a structured ranking exercise in which individuals were asked to rank domains from the brief Older People’s Quality of Life (OPQOL-brief) questionnaire and Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) in order of importance. Third, participants were asked to self-complete the EuroQol five-dimension (EQ-5D), a measure of health status, and two broader quality-of-life measures: the OPQOL-brief and ASCOT.

Mean scores on the EQ-5D, OPQOL-brief and ASCOT were 0.71 (standard deviation [SD] 0.20, range 0.06–1.00), 54.6 (SD 5.5, range 38–61) and 0.87 (SD 0.13, range 0.59–1.00), respectively, with higher scores reflecting better ratings. EQ-5D scores were positively associated with OPQOL-brief (Spearman’s Rho: 0.730; p < 0.01), but not ASCOT. Approximately half (52.4 %) of the participants ranked either ‘health’ or ‘psychological and emotional well-being’ as the domain most important to their quality of life. However, one-third (33.3 %) of the total sample ranked a non-health domain from the ASCOT or OPQOL-brief (safety, dignity, independence) as the most important contributing factor to their overall quality of life. Qualitative analysis of focus group transcripts supported the high value of both health-related (health, psychological well-being) and social (independence, safety) domains to quality of life.