[Global life satisfaction and its related factors in community elderly residents]

This study was aimed at identifying the distribution of global life satisfaction as measured by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and factors related to it in 531 community elderly residents aged 75-80 years. Subjects were divided into two groups according to the extent of their daily activities, which has been emphasized as an important health index for the elderly: the outdoor-activity group (defined as people whose daily activities extended into their community) and the indoor-activity group (defined as people whose daily activities was limited to inside their home). The distribution of global life satisfaction and related factors were compared between the two groups. For independent variables, daily behaviors were classified into five categories and examined for how they related to global life satisfaction. The results obtained were as follows: Global life satisfaction showed a bimodal distribution in both groups tending to be lower in the indoor-activity group than in the outdoor-activity group. Most of the indoor-activity group indicated low or moderate life satisfaction. The extent of their daily activities was thus related to global life satisfaction. The strongest direct factor relating to global life satisfaction was self-rated health for the outdoor-activity group. Some of their daily behaviors also related to it and these significant daily behaviors differed by sex. Only self-rated health was related to global life satisfaction in the indoor-activity group. The results indicate that, when compared to other factors, daily activity in community elderly residents is crucial to increasing their global life satisfaction, and therefore efforts to enlarge subjects' daily activities are also required.