Evaluation of the relation between poverty and health-related quality of life in the people over 60 years-old in the district 4 of Tehran municipality in 2009-2010

As the articles in recent years well indicate, more than all other factors, social determinants of health are involved in people''s health status and quality of life (QOL). Among these social factors, the economic one is introduced as the main factor determining health status. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of poverty on QOL. The health-related QOL of poor people under coverage of a public charity institution (group 1) was compared with the QOL of ordinary people (group2) using the SF-36 questionnaire. The QOL scores in the groups 1 and 2 were analyzed by Mann-Whitney, Kruskal -Wallis tests and logistic regression using the SPSS 16.00 software. A total of 400 individuals were studied. The results showed significant differences between the two groups in the QOL measures of SF-36, except for physical and mental health measures (P<0.001). With regard to the adverse consequence of the Physical Component Scale (PCS), employing logistic regression analysis, statistically significant relationships between the two groups in the demographic characteristics, except age and marital status, were found. For the adverse consequence of Mental Component Scale (MCS), logistic regression showed statistically significant differences between the two groups in the demographic characteristics, except for age. The findings indicate that poverty diminishes the QOL in most aspects; however, considering all aspects of QOL is necessary to promote the individuals'' health.