The Impact of Chronic Diseases on the Quality of Life among Elderly Survivors from Earthquake inNorthern Thailand

This study aimed to identify impact of chronic diseases on quality of life among elderly survivors in Northern Thailand. A cross sectional survey, consisting of 90 questions including the 24-item WHOQOL-OLD (World Health Organization Quality of Life in old age) were administered to 197 randomly selected elderly participants suffering from chronic diseases. Cronbach Alpha coefficient of WHOQOL-OLD in Thai version was 0.84 by the process of forward and backward word translation by three bilinguals. Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the factors included chronic diseases predicting the quality of life. The results presented that the large majority 99% of those were independent elderly people (well elders or social-bound elderly people). Approximately two-thirds of elderly people (62.1%) had the quality of life at a medium level. Seven factors were statistically significant with Total WHOQOL-OLD and were found to make a unique contribution to this prediction. Correlation for regression was significantly different from zero [F(7, 281) = 16.41, p < .001] with R2 at 0.69. The adjusted R2 value of 0.66 indicates that 66% of the variability in impacts on quality of life among elders with chronic diseases is predicted by 7 factors such as 1) Paralysis/Semi-paralysis, 2) Level of attitudes towards earthquake, 3) Sensory abilities,4) Autonomy, 5) Past Present and Future, 6) Death and Dying, and 7) Intimacy (being loved or doing love). With respect to recommendation, the aged people with paralysis/semi-paralysis should be the first priority for earthquake preparedness.