Quality of Life among Older Adults Covered by Various Pension Funds, Tabriz, Iran

Quality of life (QoL) is known to be one of the main challenges of the present century in the growing heterogeneous elder population. Therefore, determining the affecting factors of QoL among older people could be imperative. The present study aims at the comparative investigation of the QoL the old people covered by the various pension funds in the city of Tabriz, Iran.                       

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 212 older people in Tabriz, Iran. All of the participants were selected based on a stratified sampling considering the study population’s preliminary distribution in three kinds of funds (the State, Armed forces, and Social security). A reliable Iranian LEIPAD questionnaire was used in a comparative investigation of the older adult’s QoL. Data were analyzed with SPSS 21 using t-test, ANOVA, person corellation tests and multiple linear regression. 

The majority of the participants were male (84.4%) and married (94.8%). One-third of older people possessed academic qualifications. The average age of pensioners in the State fund was 8 years older than other funds. Social security pensioners received the lowest wages (i.e. 0.76 of State and 0.71 of Armed forces pensioners). The total mean score of QoL was 65.63 ± 12.27 (range: 0-93). The relationship between QoL and education level (β = 0.30) and marital status (β = 0.22) was positive and significant. Moreover, a significant difference was observed between scores of QoL and type of pension funds, marital status, education level (p < 0.05). 

Pension funds can improve the QoL among older people by increasing the pension amount, quality of services and payment benefits of those covered retirees.