Do older people benefit from having a confidant? An Oklahoma Physicians Resource/Research Network (OKPRN) study

Objective: the objective was to determine whether having a confidant was associated with improved health-related quality of life (hrqol) or survival in older,community-dwelling individuals. methods: this prospective cohort study included 23 family physician members of the oklahoma physicians research/resource network in 9 practices and 852 community-dwelling adults 65 or older participating in the oklahoma longitudinal assessment of health outcomes of mature adults studies. longitudinal models analyzed changes in self-administered quality of well-being (qwb-sa) scores over an average (s.d.) of 2.51 (1.28) years. cox proportional hazards models assessed variables possibly associated with mortality over an average survival time (+/-s.d.) of 9.22 (3.24) years. we controlled for chronic illnesses,baseline age,gender,marital status,income,race,bmi,education and specified medical outcomes study short form-36 (sf-36) domain scores. results: initially,740 participants (87%) had a confidant. being married was strongly associated with having a confidant (91.9% vs. 77.8%,p<0.0001). a confidant was associated with better sf-36 domain scores (p<0.0001),less morbidity,higher baseline qwb-sa scores and favorable changes in qwb-sa (p<0.0001). unadjusted risk of death (37.8% vs 46.4%,p=0.08) was not lower. kaplan-meier confidant status survival curves were not statistically different (p=0.16). conclusions: older people with a confidant demonstrated enhanced hrqol maintenance over the short term,but not greater survival.