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Received Nov 4, 2017; Revised Apr 2, 2018; Accepted Apr 19, 2018
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1. Introduction
The World Health Organization [1] defined quality of life as an “individual perception of his or her living situation, understood in a cultural context, value system and in relation to the objectives, expectations and standards of a given society” (p. 2). From this perspective, health-related quality of life includes areas such as physical health, psychological state, level of independence of the person, personal relationships, beliefs in a particular context or the natural environment, social support, and perceived social support [2–6].
The different discursive approaches have recognized the importance of implementing health measures from a multidimensional perspective. This means that while analyzing the quality of life, factors such as the various social conditions and social, cultural, and psychological networks that exist within the different study groups should be considered [7–13]. We add social networks, which are a fundamental element to understand this analysis, as they are an important vector of the quality of life.
However, for a general approach to the state of health from the quality of life perspective, it is necessary to consider more precise questions, and it is, therefore, important to distinguish health from life satisfaction, which involves complacency with the life of the present and past experiences. In this sense, many gerontologists claim that older people who successfully age are those who feel happy and satisfied with their past and present and enjoy positive social relationships and contacts. This concept also refers to a subjective dimension of welfare, to an adequate capacity to adapt to, accept, and recognize the environment, in order to have a better perception of health and welfare. It is about explaining how people experience their lives, their cognitive assessment, their emotional reactions, and their adaptation to life.
As we have already mentioned, quality of life and life satisfaction are different concepts, but at the same time, they are complementary. Life satisfaction represents an indicator of quality of life, a specific part of it, since it focuses on moral, cognitive, and affective aspects, on the...