Determinants of life satisfaction among Japanese elderly women attending health care and welfare service facilities.

Prolonged life expectancy must be recognized as an excellent achievement of modern medicine, but not all the elderly people are satisfied with their lives. Life satis- faction is a multi-dimensional issue that depends on many objective and subjective characteristics. In this study, we aimed at investigating the factors affecting life satis- faction of 314 elderly Japanese women attending in 28 elderly-care and welfare facili- ties at Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. Our results indicated that elderly subjects with de- pression tendencies always show significantly lower degrees of life satisfaction than others who are not depressed (p 0.001) regardless of their cognitive status. Furthermore, elderly women who shared decision for their living place and whose opinions were con- sidered for daily life decisions reported significantly more life satisfaction levels than others. We conclude that elderly life satisfaction is affected by various determinants however, with different influencing weight. Life satisfaction of elderly people, with or without dementia, is greatly affected by their mood status and share in decision mak- ing. Avoiding elderly people depressive mood, sharing them in various daily decisions, considering their opinions, and allowing them to decide their elderly-care facility place- ment are crucial determinants for their life satisfaction and essential for their coping, adaptation, well-being and successful aging. J. Med. Invest. 57 : 69-80, February, 2010