Quality of Life in People With Subjective Cognitive Decline

Quality of life is extensively studied in older persons, but there are few studies that investigate it in people with subjective cognitive decline. Our aim was to evaluate the quality of life in a Romanian sample of individuals with subjective cognitive decline compared to controls while accounting for different possible moderators. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the quality of life in a Romanian subjective cognitive decline sample.

We conducted an observational study to evaluate differences in the quality of life between subjective cognitive decline and controls. Participants were evaluated for subjective cognitive decline according to Jessen et al. We collected sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and information about physical activity. Quality of life was evaluated using the Short Form-36 questionnaire.

There were 101 participants included in the analysis with 66.33% (n = 67) in the subjective cognitive decline group. There were no differences between the social, demographic, and clinical characteristics of the individuals. The subjective cognitive decline group had a higher score on the negative emotion trait of Big Five. Individuals with subjective cognitive decline reported poorer physical functioning (P = .034), more role limitations due to physical health (P = .010) and emotional problems (P = .019), and less energy (P = .018) compared to the control group.

Persons with subjective cognitive decline reported diminished quality of life compared to controls and differences were not explained by other sociodemographic and clinical characteristics evaluated. This area could prove to be an important target for nonpharmacological interventions in the subjective cognitive decline group.