International Journal of Preventive Medicine (Int J Prev Med)2008-7802112017121218491849ENDepartment of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Babol University of Medical Sciences, BabolDepartment of Internal Medicine, Ayatollah Rohani Hospital, Babol University of Medical Sciences, BabolStudent Research Center, Faculty of Dentistry, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht20171212<p><span class="fontstyle0"><strong>Background</strong>: </span><span class="fontstyle2">The objective of this study was to determine the gender differences in health‑related quality of life (HRQoL) and to indicate to what extent this difference can be explained by differential in demographic and chronic disease conditions in Iranian elderly people.<br /></span><span class="fontstyle0"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span class="fontstyle0"><strong>Methods</strong>: </span><span class="fontstyle2">This analysis was carried out on cross‑sectional data of QoL assessment among 750 elderly individuals aged 60&ndash;90 years who were dwelling in urban population of Babol, the North of Iran. The multiple linear regression model was used to estimate the association between gender<br />and HRQoL after controlling sociodemographic characteristics and chronic disease conditions.<br /></span><span class="fontstyle0"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span class="fontstyle0"><strong>Results</strong>: </span><span class="fontstyle2">Women had signifcantly lower score in HRQoL in all subscales compared with men after adjusting several confounding factors (</span><span class="fontstyle3">P </span><span class="fontstyle2">= 0.001). The unadjusted mean difference in overall HRQoL scores was -11.2 (95% confdence interval [CI]: -13.8, -8.6) points, but it was reduced to -6.5 (95% CI: -9.0, -3.9) points between gender after adjusting by age, educational level, living status, physical activity, smoking, abdominal obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.</span></p><p><span class="fontstyle0"><strong>Conclusions</strong>: </span><span class="fontstyle2">Adjusting for sociodemographic and chronic disease conditions reduced the effect size of poorer HRQoL for women compared with men but did not remove the sex differences. The poorer scores of HRQoL in Iranian women needs further physical, psychological, and social<br />supports in elderly.</span></p><p><span class="fontstyle0" style="color: #00652e;"><strong>Keywords</strong>: </span><span class="fontstyle3">Chronic diseases, elderly, gender differences, health‑related quality of life, sociodemographic characteristics</span> <br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /></p>http://ijpm.mui.ac.ir/index.php/ijpm/article/view/1849http://ijpm.mui.ac.ir/index.php/ijpm/article/download/1849/2134