Quality of life and associated variables of life-sentenced inmates in Jos maximum security prison

Background: People serving life sentences must make prison their homes forever. They will never again have the thousands of freedoms many of us take for granted. The miserable environment of prison means people with life sentences have to preserve even the tiniest privileges towards making big differences in their quality of life. This study assessed the relationship between quality of life and sociodemographic and mental health variables of life-sentenced inmates. Material and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among 26 life-sentenced prisoners who consented to be studied out of a total of 30. Each of the participants completed the sociodemographic, forensic, and mental health variable questionnaire and WHOQoL-BREF. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 21. Results: All participants were males and majority were <45 years in age (65.4%). Majority of the participants rated state of prison welfare as poor (65.4%), were visited only once while in prison (57.7%), have low social support (53.8%), and have low resilience (65.4%). Participants who were visited once and those with positive family history of mental illness had poor perception to their overall quality of life on WHOQOL-BREF. Conclusion: The results showed that majority of prisoners on life sentence rated the state of prison welfare as poor, had only one visit in prison with poor social support and low resilience characteristics. Inmates visited once and those with family history of mental illness have poor perception of their overall quality of life.