Quality of Life in the Decayed Historic Areas of Isfahan (DHI) Using the World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument (WHOQOL-BREF)

The aim of this paper is to measure the quality of life (QOL) in the decayed historic areas of Isfahan (DHI). The WHOQOL-BREF instrument was used in order to find the strengths and weaknesses of these areas with regard to the domains and determine the most effective domains and indicators that would show the best ways to improve QOL in DHI. We used the multi-stage sampling technique for sampling. In the first stage the Neyman??s allocation method was used to determine sample sizes which were then distributed among the districts using the systematic sampling method (in the second stage). Household interviews were conducted to gather the needed data. Subsequently the Cronbach alpha test and second-order confirmatory factor model were used to determine the internal consistency and fitness of the WHOQOL-BREF model in DHI. The WHOQOL-BREF model provided an adequate fit to the data. Also, according to our model, the psychological domain has the highest association with QOL (0.93). This indicates that the psychological domain should have priority in improvement plans. The results show that the most significant problems are related to the physical (12.13) and psychological (12.58) domains and the highest scores among the WHOQL-BREF domains relate to the social relationships (13.24) and environment (12.61) domains. Thus, in spite of the fact that DHI have environmental difficulties from the objective point of view, they do, nevertheless, have a high score from a subjective point of view among WHOQL-BREF domains. Therefore the necessity of improvement in the DHI should be considered not only in relation to the environmental domain but also the physical, psychological and social domains.