Quality of life of elderly women as family caregivers with wrist fractures in selected medical centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences, 2022

Wrist fractures are the most common arm fractures in older adults. The impact of wrist fractures of older women as family care givers has been less studied than that of other types and so, less is known about the factors related to the quality of life of these fractures. This study is aimed to assess the quality of life of older women as family caregivers with wrist fractures.

A descriptive cross-sectional study included 200 older women aged 65 or more as family caregivers with wrist fractures in selected medical centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences, 2022 through continuous sampling. The data collection tool included the demographic characteristics form and the IOF QLQ quality of life questionnaire. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistical methods in SPSS-20 software.

The results showed that the mean score of the total quality of life of the subjects was 44.22 ± 20.41. The quality of life of 43.5% of the participants was bad and the quality of life of other participants (56.5%) was good. Poor economic status with a standard coefficient of 0.208 was the most related factor to the variable of the quality of life of the elderly women.

Despite the fact that about half of the women had a good quality of life, a significant percentage of the remaining women had a bad quality of life, which could probably be due to a low pain tolerance threshold or inability to perform activity of daily living which need family and social support.