The Effects of Depressive Symptoms on Quality of Life Among Institutionalized Older Adults in Taiwan. Issue 1 (20th June 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, I‐chuan; Kuo, Huai‐Ting; Lin, Kuan‐Chia; Wu, Yi‐Chen
• Is Part Of: Perspectives in psychiatric care. Volume 50:Issue 1(2014:Jan.)
• Page Start: 58
• Page End: 64
• Publication Date: 2013-06-20
• Subjects: Psychiatric nursing -- Periodicals; Psychiatric nursing -- Research -- Periodicals; 616.890231
• DOI: 10.1111/ppc.12029
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0031-5990

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <sec id="ppc12029-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Purpose</title> <p>To explore the effect of physical health status and depressive symptoms on quality of life (QOL) and to examine whether depressive symptoms mediate the effect of physical health status on the physical and mental components of QOL among institutionalized older adults.</p> </sec> <sec id="ppc12029-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Design and Methods</title> <p>A cross‐sectional study was used to assess 306 residents from 73 long‐term care facilities in Taipei, Taiwan.</p> </sec> <sec id="ppc12029-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Findings</title> <p>We found that depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between the number of chronic diseases and activities of daily living and physical components of QOL (<italic>z</italic> = −2.41, <italic>p</italic> = .016; <italic>z</italic> = 3.33, <italic>p</italic> &lt; .001) as well as between the number of chronic diseases and mental components of QOL (<italic>z</italic> = −2.45, <italic>p</italic> = .014).</p> </sec> <sec id="ppc12029-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Practice Implications</title> <p>Our findings indicate that alleviating depressive symptoms can improve the QOL of older adults in long‐term care facilities.</p> </sec> </abstract>