Association of quality of life with affective temperament, parental bonding, and lifestyles

Quality of life (QoL) may be associated with affective temperament, parental bonding, and lifestyle habit. In the present study, we hypothesized that more hyperthymic temperament, more maternal and more paternal care, and more exercise, more reading, and more music listening may be associated with better QoL. Subjects were 130 healthy participants who were middle-aged female dominant. World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief (WHOQOL-BREF), Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and the San Diego-auto questionnaire (TEMPS-A), Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), and a simple questionnaire about lifestyle were used. Considering the non-normality of the data, binomial logistic regression analyses were conducted for the 6 QoL domains (overall, physical, psychological, social, environmental, and mean) scores as the dependent variable, with age, gender, scores of five temperaments (depressive, cyclothymic, irritable, anxious, and hyperthymic), scores of parental bonding (paternal care, paternal overprotection, maternal care, and paternal overprotection), and weekly hours for three lifestyle habits (physical exercise, music listening, and reading) as independent variables. More exercise and less anxious temperament significantly predicted better overall QoL (R2 = 0.536), and more hyperthymic temperament and less anxious temperament significantly predicted better psychological QoL (R2 = 0.571). Also, more cyclothymic temperament significantly predicted better social QoL (R2 = 0.486) and more hyperthymic temperament and more maternal care significantly predicted better environmental QoL (R2 = 0.511). Finally, more exercise significantly predicted better overall and mean QoL (R2 = 0.578) and none predicted physical QoL. More hyperthymic temperament may be associated with better psychological and environmental QoL, and less anxious temperament may be associated with better overall and psychological QoL. In addition, more cyclothymic temperament may be associated with better social QoL, and more maternal care may be associated with better environmental QoL. Finally, more exercise may be associated with better overall and mean QoL. Although these may at least partially support our hypothesis, further prospective studies are required to determine the causal relationship.