Predictors of Quality of Life among Grandparents Raising Their Grandchildren: An Ecological Approach

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to examine factors affecting quality of life among grandparents raising their grandchildren. METHODS: This study carried out a secondary analysis of data from the 2014 Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) and Statistics Korea. Data collected from 224 grandparents who reported raising their grandchildren were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, ANOVA, pearson correlation coefficient, and multilevel regression analysis. RESULTS: The mean score of the participants' quality of life was 62.63. Significant predictors of quality of life of the grandparents included subjective health status, last year's total house income, number of last year's travels, frequency of last year's movie seeing, and number of children's parks per 100,000 population. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that public health nurses in improving quality of life of grandparents focus on children's parks and formal social supports as community factors as well as regular exercise as an individual factor in order to be more effective.