| Study | Country | Instruments | Sample | Main results |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urosevic et al. 2015 |
Serbia | European Euro-QoL questionnaire (EQ-5D-3L) | 100 elders | Poor score for anxiety/depression in rural. No differences in QoL. |
| Baernholdt et al. 2012 | USA | Health related QoL (HQOL) | 911 elders | People in rural had lower HQOL than people in adjacent and urban areas. |
| Dos Santos et al. 2014 |
Brazil | World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) and World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment for Older Adults (WHOQOL-OLD). | 2142 elderly in urban area and other 850 in rural area. | Rural elders had scores significantly higher than the urban area in the domains of physical, psychological, and social relations in the WHOQOL-BREF, and in the facets of autonomy, past, present and future activities, social participation and intimacy of the WHOQOL-OLD. |
| Zhou et al 2011 | China | Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) | 2441 rural and 2554 urban participants | Scores of SF-36 in the rural population were significantly lower than those in the urban population except general health. |
| Werling et al 2016 | Sweden | Survey on QoL. | 587 respondents in urban areas and 123 in the rural areas. |
No differences on QoL between the urban and rural elderly. |
| Usha & Lalitha, 2017 | India | WHO QOL-BREF-26 | 830 rural and 120 urban elderly | The urban elders showed better QOL than those rural. |
| Barbosa et al. 2015 | Brazil | WHOQOL BREF and IPAQ Long Version Questionnaire | 20 residents of urban areas and 20 residents of rural areas | No differences between the rural and urban areas for QOL or PAL. |
| Mudey et al. 2011 | India | WHO-QOL BREF | 800 elderly subjects selected from urban (n= 400) and rural (n= 400) areas. | Elders living in the urban community reported significant lower level of QoL in the domains of physical and psychological than the rural elderly populations. The rural elderly population reported significant lower level of QoL in the domain of social relation and environmental than urban population. |
| Pappaionou et al. 2015 | Greece | The Oral Health Impact Profile in its short form (OHIP-14) and Oral Health Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL). | 501 elderly | The overall level of OHRQoL was better in urban than in rural elderly. |
| Huong, et al. 2012 | Vietnam | Qualitative methods to explore and compare the dimensions of QoL for urban and rural dwelling elderly Vietnamese. | Sample size not found. | For elderly participants in both urban and rural areas, physical health, social relations, finances and economics, the physical and social environment, and psychological health were reported as important. Rural participants also identified religious practice as an important dimension of QoL. |
| Sewo Sampaio et al. 2013 | Japan | WHOQOL-BREF and WHOQOL-OLD | 830 community-dwelling older adults. | Participants living in the urban area had higher QOL scores than those living in the rural area. |
| Akbar et al. 2013 | India | WHOQOL-BREF | 263 geriatric subjects enrolled 172 were from rural area and 91 were from urban areas. | The urban geriatric population had a higher score compared to rural population for physical, social relationship and environmental domains. Rural subjects scored higher for Perceived Overall Quality of Life and Perceived Overall Health Status, but the difference was not found to be statistically significant. |
| Kostka et al. 2014 | Poland | Body mass index (BMI), calf circumference (CC) and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) related to QoL by EuroQoL 5D questionnaire | 1003 community-dwelling subjects from the urban environment, 890 subjects from the rural environment and 879 subjects from an institutional environment (nursing homes) | Nutrition status indices (BMI, CC and MNA) were generally higher in the urban than in the rural environment and clearly worse in institutionalized elderly. In both community-dwelling groups, BMI and CC were negatively related to several EuroQoL scores. |
| Amorim et al. 2017 | Brazil | 279 retired individuals | Scales of happiness, social support, diversity of activities, and issues about satisfaction with health and economic situation. | Retirees from the urban area had a higher happiness level than retirees from the rural area. |
| Carta et al. 2012 | Italy | Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) | 286 male and 399 female ederly. | The urban/rural difference of mean scores of SF-12 did not achieve statistical significance in women. Men aged 65 years and older with rural residence showed higher scores than men from the same age group with urban residence. |