Measuring health-related quality of life (SF-36) among Chinese caregivers in preschool settings in Hong Kong

Measuring health-related quality of life (SF-36) among Chinese caregivers in preschool settings in Hong Kong

• Chan, Mei Sheung Christine The Hong Kong Institute of Education
• Mok, Magdalena Mo Ching The Hong Kong Institute of Education

2010

17th Annual Conference of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (2010: London, England)

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MF Characteristics & Conditions of Educational Workers

• Hong Kong
• China
• Singapore
• Taiwan

• 1997.7 onwards

• Pre-Primary Education

AIMS: This study aims to describe the health-related quality of life of both in-service and pre-service teachers who engaged in the teacher education of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Education (HKECE) programme. The research questions are: (a) What is the health-related quality of life of ECE teachers in Hong Kong? (b) Are there differences between ECE teachers in Hong Kong and those in other South-East Asian Chinese communities? (c) What demographic factors are related to quality of life of ECE teachers? METHODS: The sample comprised 1,026 ECE teachers, including 834 in-service and 192 pre-service teachers of early childhood education. Participants completed the self-administered Chinese version of the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) (SF-36) questionnaire. The HRQOL has been validated for use with the Chinese communities in Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Taiwan. Mean values of the HRQOL main scale and subscales for this sample were compared against pervious similar samples in other Asian countries. Subgroups (according to age, housing-related socio-economic status, and experience of illness/diseases) were compared on the HRQOL main scale and subscales using the methods of MANOVA and ANOVA. RESULTS: The results suggest that the HKECE teachers were found to have not only poor self-rated health-related quality of life, but also low quality of life compared to four other Chinese samples in South East Asian communities that were reported in the literature. Analysis showed that in-service teachers had significantly poorer quality of life than pre-service teachers, and old teachers tended to have worse quality of life than their young colleagues. Significant differences were also found in socio-economic status and experience of illness/disease. CONCLUSIONS: Hong Kong healthcare and education policy makers should aware of the phenomenon that some ECE teachers are in a serious state of ill health, especially those in-service teachers who have families, having low socio-economic status and previous record of illness or disease.
[Copyright © 2010 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.]

Paper presented at the 17th Annual Conference of the International Society for Quality of Life Research

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/4d99ac3a

2016-01-07