Quality of Life among People Aged 75 and over in Great Britain, 1994-1998

Data for this study were first collected to contribute to a large-scale randomised trial of assessment and management of people aged 75 years and over in Britain, funded by the MRC, DoH and Scottish Office. Brief assessments were offered to all people of this age registered with 106 general practices within the 'General Practice Research Framework'. In half the practices all patients were then offered a detailed assessment (the 'universal arm' of the study). In the remaining practices, only patients whose answers on the brief assessment indicated particular need for a detailed assessment (the 'targeted arm') were offered one. The purposes of the trial were: <ul><li>to compare universal and targeted assessment with respect to mortality, institutionalisation, hospital admissions and quality of life</li><li>to compare different methods of undertaking the brief assessment for response, completeness and cost</li><li>to compare management by the primary care team and by a geriatric evaluation management team with respect to these outcomes</li></ul>People in 23 of the practices were approached for quality of life information at baseline, then resurveyed 18 and 36 months later. <br> <br> The Economic and Research Council (ESRC) subsequently funded analyses of the data collected for the project 'Inequalities in Quality of Life among People Aged 75 Years and Over in the Community', which was part of the 'Growing Older' research programme. This project used baseline data from the trial only, and its purpose was to investigate differences in selected dimensions of quality of life of elderly people by their socio-economic circumstances in late and mid-life, and to identify features that account for socio-economic variations. The specific objectives of the ESRC project were to:<ul><li>investigate differentials in quality of life by socio-economic factors, gender and age among people aged 75 and over living in the community</li><li>identify personal factors which contribute to differentials in quality of life</li><li>investigate the interaction of personal and area measures of deprivation on quality of life</li><li>examine whether social class during mid-life is associated with quality of life in old age</li><li>investigate whether socio-economic circumstances experienced in old age modify any observed association with mid-life measures</li></ul>For the second edition (August 2006), the variable 'Fall', covering falls the respondent had during the six months prior to the survey, was added to the dataset.<br> <br>