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Associations with quality of life and the effect of psychopathology in a community study

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Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Quality of life (QoL) is considerably impaired in mental illness and especially in depression. In this study, we aimed to determine the demographic, personality-related and psychopathological associations with QoL. In addition, we studied how the associations with QoL differ depending on the burden of psychopathology.

Methods

We used a longitudinal observational cohort study, enriched for high levels of psychopathology, to examine data for QoL when the subjects were 34–35. We conducted a hierarchical linear regression analysis to determine how sex, personality, sociodemographics, somatic symptoms and psychopathology affect QoL.

Results

Once all the variables were included in the model, total psychopathology is strongly negatively associated with QoL, while mastery and income were shown to have positive associations with QoL. Sex, personality and somatic symptoms had no significant associations with QoL once the other variables had been introduced into the regression. Due to the outstanding association with psychopathology, we tested whether the relationship had any interaction with the other predictors, but none reached statistical significance.

Conclusions

The most important association with QoL is psychopathology, regardless of sex, personality, coping resources, sociodemographics or the extent somatic symptoms. The relationship holds across the other variables included and the results are, thus, widely applicable.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Jonathan Rogers

  2. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, UK

    Jonathan Rogers

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Lenggstrasse 31, P.O. Box 1931, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland

    Michael P. Hengartner, Jules Angst, Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross & Wulf Rössler

  4. Laboratory of Neuroscience (LIM 27), Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Wulf Rössler

  5. Collegium Helveticum, A Joint Research Institute between the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland

    Wulf Rössler

Authors
  1. Jonathan Rogers
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  2. Michael P. Hengartner
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  3. Jules Angst
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  4. Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross
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  5. Wulf Rössler
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jules Angst.

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Rogers, J., Hengartner, M.P., Angst, J. et al. Associations with quality of life and the effect of psychopathology in a community study. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 49, 1467–1473 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-014-0841-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-014-0841-0

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