Life satisfaction and quality of life amongst elderly Portuguese living in the community

The aim of this paper is to study the difference between life satisfaction and quality of life as general measures of wellbeing among older people and how both variables relate differently to individual, social, relational and instrumental determinants. A group of 234 elderly Portuguese living in their own homes in rural and urban areas were studied. The results obtained identify a group of individuals with low levels of schooling and possessing reduced income, which seems to influence the evaluation of the quality of life but not the life satisfaction. Life satisfaction, seen as a psychological dimension, appears as a variable associated more with personality characteristics and less with external variables, regardless of whether they are physical, social or environmental. The perception of quality of life seems to be clearly associated not only with socio-demographic variables but also with physical and contextual variables.