Does being bilingual in English and Chinese influence changes in quality of life scale scores? Evidence from a prospective, population based study
| Autor: | Julian Thumboo, David Machin, Kok-Yong Fong, Szu-tien Thio, M L Boey, Yin Bun Cheung, P H Feng |
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| Rok vydání: | 2005 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male Research design China Population Multilingualism Developmental psychology Quality of life Surveys and Questionnaires Humans Prospective Studies Prospective cohort study education Neuroscience of multilingualism Aged Singapore education.field_of_study Public Health Environmental and Occupational Health Middle Aged Stratified sampling Quality of Life Marital status Female Psychology Demography |
| Zdroj: | Quality of Life Research. 14:529-538 |
| ISSN: | 1573-2649 0962-9343 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11136-004-4848-y |
| Popis: | Background: Bilinguals differ from monolinguals in language use, but the influence of bilingualism on changes in Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) scores is not known. Objective: To determine the influence of bilingualism on changes in HRQoL scores. Research design: A prospective cohort study of a population-based, disproportionately stratified random sample of monolingual or bilingual ethnic Chinese who completed the Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) in English or Chinese twice in 2 years. Least squares regression models were used to assess the influence of bilingualism on SF-36 scores, while adjusting for the influence of questionnaire language and determinants of HRQoL. Results: Usable English and Chinese questionnaires were returned by 1013 and 910 subjects respectively (aged 21–65 years, 48.5% female, 52.8% bilingual). Bilinguals differed from monolinguals in known determinants of HRQoL (being younger and better educated), changes in determinants of HRQoL over 2 years (more bilinguals had changes in work or marital status) and had mean SF-36 scores that were up to 10 points higher than monolinguals. After adjusting for these differences, bilingualism did not influence 2 year change scores for any of 8 SF-36 scales. Conclusion: Bilingualism did not influence changes in HRQoL scores over 2 years in this large, population-based study of subjects fluent in English and/or Chinese (representing an alphabet and/or pictogram based language respectively). |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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