Interrelationships among common symptoms in the elderly and their effects on health-related quality of life: a cross-sectional study in rural Korea

Table 1 Socioeconomic characteristics and self-reported prevalence of symptoms and diseases in the study participants

Characteristics		Participants
Characteristics		N = 1328
Mean age, years (SD)		70.0 (5.9)
Education, n (%)	Less than elementary school	502 (37.8)
	Elementary school	542 (40.8)
	Middle school	179 (13.5)
	High school or higher	105 (7.9)
Living alone, n (%)	Yes	317 (23.9)
Living alone, n (%)	No	1011 (76.1)
Household income^a, 10,000 won/month, n (%)	< 50	293 (23.0)
	50–99	469 (36.8)
	100–199	362 (28.4)
	≥ 200	152 (11.9)
Symptoms, n (%)	Fatigue	728 (54.8)
	Pain	755 (56.9)
	Sleep disturbance	443 (33.4)
	Indigestion	335 (25.2)
	Depression/anger/anxiety	353 (26.6)
Number of symptoms, n (%)	0	314 (23.6)
	1	257 (19.4)
	2	274 (20.6)
	3	211 (15.9)
	4	184 (13.9)
	5	88 (6.6)
Diagnosed diseases^b, n (%)	Hypertension	889 (66.9)
	Obesity	690 (52.0)
	Dyslipidemia	555 (41.8)
	Arthritis	399 (30.0)
	Diabetes mellitus	217 (16.3)

^aFifty-two participants (3.9 %) refused to answer the question related to household income
^bOf the collected information on twenty-eight diseases, the five most prevalent diseases are listed in the table