Psychosocial Dimensions of Quality of Life among Elders: A Research of the Italian and Spanish Elderly☆

Abstract Scientific research has been steadily adding many years to life and the number of older people is increasing. This brings us to the question of how increasing the Quality of Life of the elderly should be a priority. We carried out a research on 95 older people from two similar socio-economic contexts: Italy and Spain. The aims were to explore the different dimensions of Quality of Life among elders and to verify any positive correlations these dimensions may have demonstrated. Results showed high scores relating to all of the considered dimensions, especially for those concerning the subjective and inter-subjective dimensions. Spaniards, however, were much more satisfied with their lives than Italians. Generally speaking, the participants were unsatisfied with their sexual lives, but there was a positive correlation between Self-Efficacy for coping with the Negative Emotional and sexual satisfaction among Spanish elders.