Geriatric patients seem to experience long-term improvements during geriatric treatment, which appears to fulfill its aim of recovering independence. For a better understanding of relevant factors for the recreation of geriatric patients, further research is needed, e.g. with respect to the impact of the nutritional status.

Purpose: In the context of geriatric rehabilitation, 2 quality of life (QoL) facets are of particular importance: a behavioral, more objective facet, and an emotional, more subjective facet. This study looked at changes in these 2 QoL facets during rehabilitation, their relationship to each other and potential mediating processes. Design: Ninety-two geriatric patients were assessed by the geriatric assessment and a structured face-to-face interview at admission to and discharge from an inpatient geriatric rehabilitation ward. Behavioral QoL was measured in terms of independence in the activities of daily living and mobile abilities, while positive and negative affect represented emotional QoL. As potential mediators, self-perceptions of health (self-rated health, subjective pain, temporal health comparison) were assessed. Statistical analysis comprised repeated-measures (multivariate) analyses of variance as well as regression and mediation analyses based upon a fixed effects-panel model. Results: All behavioral and emotional QoL indicators showed significant prepost improvements. During rehabilitation, changes in behavioral QoL were significantly related to changes in emotional QoL. Multiple regression of changes in emotional QoL on changes in behavioral QoL and in self-perceptions of health revealed, however, that only health perceptions significantly predicted emotional QoL. Mediation analysis showed that self-perceptions of health fully mediated the relationship between behavioral and emotional QoL outcomes. Conclusions: During geriatric rehabilitation, significant progress can be made regarding QoL. The results indicate that the influence of physical progress on affective improvements is conveyed through self-perceptions of health, showing the importance of self-perceptions of health for emotional QoL in geriatric rehabilitation. Impact and ImplicationsThe present research not only gives an insight into the objective quality of life, but also into the rarely considered subjective quality of life of geriatric patients during inpatient geriatric rehabilitation. The relationship between improvements in physical functioning and improvements in affect is addressed, taking into account the mediating role of changes in self-perceptions of health. Stronger promotion of the subjective quality of life in terms of affective outcomes in the rehabilitation process is needed, as affective improvements lag behind physical progress. Self-perceptions of health have to be considered in the rehabilitation context as they seem to play an important role alongside physical functioning for the affective experience of patients undergoing inpatient geriatric rehabilitation.

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