The impact of overall life satisfaction and income satisfaction on cognitive function in Korean older adults using latent growth modeling approaches

Research

Objectives: To examine the effect of the overall quality of life and income satisfaction on cognitive functional status over time in older Korean adults.

Design: A prospective longitudinal study. We utilized the latent growth model (LGM) to examine whether the overall quality of life and income satisfaction are positively associated with cognitive function for six years, even after controlling for the time-varying and time-invariant covariates. Setting: Older adults living in the Korean community. Participants: A total of 2,532 older adults aged 65 or older in the Korean community participated in all four waves (2014-2020) of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: We used the total score of the Korean Version of the Mini-Mental Status Examination to measure cognitive function. The quality of life and earned income satisfaction were measured using 100-point self-rated questionnaires.

Results: The average age of the participants was 70.08 (SD = 5.78), and there were 1049 males (41.43%) and 1483 females (58.57%). Time-invariance covariates adjusted LGM showed that an increase in the quality of life and income satisfaction were positively associated with cognitive function over time. Also, the time-invariance covariates showed significant differences in age, sex, educational attainment, marital status, employment status, region, chronic disease (stroke), and self-rated health in cognitive function. The LGM demonstrated an acceptable model fit.

Conclusions: The study findings indicated that overall quality of life and income satisfaction were positively associated with older adults' cognitive function. Since the overall quality of life and income satisfaction are modifiable factors, and healthcare professionals would need to consider these social characteristics when establishing treatment plans for cognitive function in older adult populations. Author(s) Disclosures: The author declares that (s)he has no relevant or material financial interests related to the research described in this paper.