Quality of Life of the Elderly Residing in Zahedan (South East of Iran)

Objectives: Today quality of life is considered as a comprehensive health issue. The paper aims to study the quality of life of the elderly residing in Zahedan, Iran, in 2016. The study is regarding the increasing number of elderly people and the effect of socio-environmental factors on their health.  Methods: It was a descriptive and correlational study. The sample included 117 elderly people residing in Zahedan city who were recruited by population-based cluster random sampling. Data was collected by Quality of Life questionnaire (SF-36) and analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient, ANOVA, and t-test using SPSS software, version 19. Results: The mean score of quality of life was 58.2±6.25. Quality of life of women was significantly lower than that of men (P=0.04). Quality of life scores were associated with marital status; so widowed individuals gained less score than married or single individuals (P=0.048), but the quality of life showed no significant relationship with other demographic variables such as age and educational level (P>0.05). Discussion: In the study conducted it was found that the quality of life among the elderly was moderate and that the status of social performance was better than their physical health. It was also found that there was no significant relationship between educational level and quality of life. It was found that the quality of life was low, especially in elderly women; hence more attention needs to be paid to them.