Life satisfaction, multimorbidity and self-assessment of health among respondents with a disability group

Objective — to assess the relationship between disability and such components of life perception as satisfaction, self-assessment of health and presence of diseases based on a survey of a representative sample of the population.
Material and methods. Data from the longitudinal household survey "Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Economic Situation and Population Health of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE)". The study included data from 996 respondents 
Results. The proportion of disabled people of the 1st group was 8.3%, the 2nd - 49.6%, the 3rd - 42.1%. The average age was 65.4±16.1; the proportion of people over 65 years old among people of the 1st group of disability was 62.7%; 2nd group - 64.0% and 3rd group - 54.9% (p=0.02). The proportion of those who rated their health as poor or very poor was: group 1 - 73.5%, group 2 - 50.8%; group 3 - 42.7%. The average number of "diseases" was 4.4±2.6 (without statistically significant differences by disability groups). The proportion of those who are "completely satisfied with life or rather satisfied" is almost 10 times higher (39.6%) than the proportion of those who consider their health to be "very good and good" (3.4%; p=0.007). When conducting a multivariate regression analysis, it was revealed that the factor "completely satisfied with life or rather satisfied" is associated with age 65 years and older,  self-assessment of health as "very good and good"  and "financial well-being" . Conclusions. Not all respondents with disabilities consider their health to be "bad and very bad", even in the presence of multimorbid pathology and the first group of disability. The proportion of people with disabilities who are satisfied with life exceeds the proportion of people with disabilities who are dissatisfied with life. One of the important factors influencing life satisfaction in the presence of a disability is "financial well-being". The results obtained indicate the need to coordinate the capabilities of state medical and social resources, improve the standard of living and material well-being.