Quality of Life and Mental Well-Being: A Gendered Analysis of Persons Experiencing Homelessness in Canada
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BRIEF REPORT
Quality of Life and Mental Well‑Being: A Gendered Analysis of Persons Experiencing Homelessness in Canada Kristy Buccieri1 · Abram Oudshoorn2 · Jeannette Waegemakers Schiff3 · Bernadette Pauly4 · Rebecca Schiff5 · Stephen Gaetz6 Received: 10 July 2018 / Accepted: 26 February 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Homelessness has negative implications for mental well-being and quality of life. This paper identifies the quality of life variables that contribute to positive or negative wellbeing, reporting on a regression analysis from 343 individuals experiencing homelessness in Canada. Results indicate that a lack of sleep duration and quality reduced mental well-being for both genders, not having access to food and/or hygiene facilities decreased men’s well-being, and engaging in illegal subsistence strategies, such as selling drugs, negatively impacted women’s mental well-being. For persons experiencing homelessness, mental well-being and quality-of-life are gendered outcomes of their limited access to social determinants of health. Keywords Homelessness · Quality of life · Mental well-being · Social determinants of health · Gender · Canada
Introduction Mental well-being and quality of life are related concepts. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), quality of life is a subjective evaluation of well-being that can be grouped into the 4 domains of one’s physical health, psychological state, social relationships, and environment (WHO Quality of Life [QOL] Group 1995, 1998a, b). It is well recognized that living in poverty and/or experiencing homelessness have negative implications for mental wellbeing (Kertesz et al. 2005) and for quality of life (Lam and Rosenheck 2000) but the inter-relation between these factors
is not presently clear. In this paper we conduct a regression analysis to identify the individual variables that are related to mental well-being and quality of life for those experiencing homelessness. Given that gender has been found to impact experiences of homelessness (Montgomery et al. 2017; Wachter et al. 2015; Winetrobe et al. 2017) we also incorporate gender as a grouping variable in each analysis. Our intent is to identify the specific significant interactions between mental well-being and quality of life variables, and to determine the directionality of these relationships using the WHO Quality of Life domains as a conceptual framework.
* Kristy Buccieri [email protected]
2
Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University, Room 3344 FNB, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada
Abram Oudshoorn [email protected]
3
Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, Professional Faculties 4242, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
4
Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, University of Victoria, Technology Enterprise Facility Room 273, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada
5
Health Sciences, Lakehead University, SN 1006B, 955 Oliver Rd, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada
6
Facult
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