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Dianne Vella-Brodrick.

Comparison of sociodemographic, personality and social support variables as predictors of quality of life.Thanks to Kate Murray, Katherine Andrews, Patricia Masino and Ingrid Jurgensen for assistance with the data collection.

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Subjective Well-being

• The ‘good life’ is valued highly by individuals.• Subjective Well-being (SWB) is a scientific term

that denotes the ‘good life’.• It comprises:

– An affective component (high positive affect and low negative affect)

– A cognitive component (satisfaction with life)– Domain specific (e.g., work, family)

(Diener, Suh, Lucas & Smith, 1999)• The measurement of Quality of Life (QoL) can

include a combination of these factors depending on the measure used.

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What makes people ‘feel good’?

• A multitude of variables have been examined as predictors of SWB.– Sociodemographic factors

– Personality

– Social support

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Sociodemographic variables

• Age (mixed findings)• Sex (mixed findings)• Relationship status (married people have

higher SWB)• SES - income, education, employment. (mixed

findings but a weak positive relationship generally)

• Illness (is inversely related to SWB).

Only about 8-20% of the variance in SWB accounted for by sociodemographic variables.

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Wilson (1967)

The happy person is a:

“young, healthy, well-educated, well paid, extroverted, optimisitic, worry-free, religious, married person with high self-esteem, job moarale, modest aspirations, of either sex and of a wide range of intelligence” (p. 294).

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Personality

• Extraversion (positive affect)• Neuroticism (negative affect)• Conscientiousness• Agreeableness• Openness (weakest predictor of SWB)

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Social Support (Social Capital)

• A type of relationship transaction between individuals (Zimet et al., 1988)

• Can be emotional, instrumental, informational, companionship or affirmational.

• A coping resource:– Can provide general protection (main effect

model)– Can be helpful during times of stress

(buffering model).

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Social Support Sources

• Family • Friends• Significant Other• Work (Perceived Organisational Support)• Community (Sense of Community)

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Rationale for the study

• Examines the relative contributions of sociodemographic, personality and social support variables on Social, Psychological, Physical and Environmental QoL.

• Extends on previous studies by examining specific QoL domains and including an extensive set of predictor variables, particularly in relation to social support where family, friends, significant others, work and community support.

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Hypotheses

• Sociodemgraphics, personality and social support variables will be significant predictors of all QoL domains

• Social support will significantly add to the prediction of QoL beyond that afforded by sociodemographic and personality variables.

• Specific predictor variables will differentially predict the various QoL domains. – support variables should be the best predictors of

QoL-Social. – personality variables should be the best predictors

of QoL-Psychological.

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Participants

• 466 participants• 125 males, 334 females (7 missing)• Age, M=44.36, SD=15.41, Range = 18-82.• 232 were married, 111 were single.• Nearly 60% were tertiary educated.• 68.5% were employed.• 17% indicated they were currently ill.

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Measures – dependent variable

Subjective Well-being:• WHOQoL-Bref

– Social (alpha=.68) 3 items

– Psychological (alpha=.81) 6 items

– Physical (alpha=.88) 8 items

– Environmental (alpha=.81) 8 items

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Measures – independent variables

• Sociodemograhic questionnaire

• Personality– Mini-Markers (Saucier, 1994)

> 40 descriptors> Big 5

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Measures cont’d

• Social Support– Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social

Support (Zimet et al., 1988).> 12 item scale

– Perceived Organisational Support (Eisenberger, 1986).

> 8 item scale

– Sense of Community Index (Chavis, et al., 1986)

> 12 item scale

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Procedure

• Posters were placed in public locations• Responses were anonymous• Returned to researchers via reply paid

envelopes.

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Results – Hierarchical Regressions

• Predictor variables were entered in three blocks:

• Sociodemographic variables:– Income, age, gender, r/ship (married/single),

illness.

• Personality:– Extraversion, agreeableness, openness,

conscientiousness, emotional stability.

• Social support:– Family, friends, signif. other, community, work.

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Outcome variables

• Quality of Life (4 outcome variables)– Social - friends, personal relationship and sex life

– Psychological - enjoy life, life meaningful, concentration, accept bodily appearance, negative feelings

– Physical - pain, medical treatment, energy, get around physically, sleep, daily activities, capacity for work.

– Environmental - safety, health of physical environment, enough money, information, leisure activities, conditions of living place, access to health services, transport

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Correlations

• Generally weak to moderate correlations were found among the variables.

• The highest correlations were among the WHO-QoL domains (highest r=.59) and WHO-Physical and illness (r=-.56).

• The support variables were also moderately correlated with each other.

• WHO-Social was moderately correlated with all three support variables.

• WHO-Psychological was moderately correlated with emotional stability (.47).

The assumption of multicollinearity was not violated.

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Social QoL

Beta tRelationship(single) -.143 -2.24*Currently ill - .104 -2.26*Income .123 2.50* R2=51% Emotional stability .135 2.56* (Adj. 48%)Sig. other support .304 5.36***Friends support .256 4.31***Org. support .094 1.99*

Step 1 R2 =17.5% F =7.97***

Step 2 R2 =10.2% F =7.24***

Step 3 R2 =23.5% F =24.42***

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Psychological QoL

Beta t

Currently ill -.233 - 4.68***

Emotional stability .310 5.43***

Extraversion .099 1.97*

Friends support .148 2.29*

R2=43% (Adj. 39%)Step 1 R2 =16.8% F =7.59***

Step 2 R2 =18.5% F =14.76***

Step 3 R2 =7.6% F =6.77***

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Physical QoL

Beta tAge -.138 -2.30*Currently ill -.499 -9.83 ***Emotional stability .135 2.33*

R2=41% (Adj. 37%)

Step 1 R2 =32.8% F =18.37***

Step 2 R2 =5.1% F= 4.28**

Step 3 R2 =3.1% F=2.67**

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Environmental QoL

Betat

Dependents -.137 -2.42*Currently ill - .231 -4.45***Income .204 3.69***Friends support .193 2.88**Community support -.139 -2.42*Org. Support .127 2.38*

R2=38% (Adj. 34%)Step 1 R2 =23.0% F =11.21***Step 2 R2 =5.2% F= 3.76**Step 3 R2 =10.2% F =8.34***

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Discussion

• Sociodemographic variables, personality and social support significantly predicted all QoL domains.

• Support variables significantly predicted QoL beyond that afforded by sociodemographics and personality.

• These results are consistent with previous literature.

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Discussion

• Different variables did predict the various dimensions of QoL.

• Sociodemographic variables were the best predictors of QoL-Environment and Physical.

• Social support variables were the best predictors of QoL-Social.

• Personality variables were the best predictors of QoL psychological (emotional stability and extraversion).

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Discussion – Sociodemographics and Personality

• Current illness is a consistent predictor of all QoL domains. Income influences social and enironmental QoL. Age, being single and having dependents negatively affects QoL.

• Emotional stability and to a lesser extent, extraversion are important to QoL.

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Discussion – Social Support

• Support from friends was especially important for QoL- Social, Psychological and Environmental.

• Significant Other support was important for QoL-Social.

• Family support was not a significant predictor of QoL for the current sample.

• Community support was inversely related to QoL-Environmental.

• Organisational support significantly predicted QoL- Social and Environmental.

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Limitations

• Cannot ascertain causal relationships as this is a cross-sectional study.

• The interaction effects of personality and social support need to be examined.

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Conclusions

• The predictors of SWB are many and varied.

• QoL is not predetermined by dispositional factors alone. Therefore, intervention programs aimed at improving QoL can focus on fostering social support from appropriate sources.