Executive Functions mediate the Association between Age and Quality of Life in Drug Users

Abstract

The major aim of the study was to assess mediating role of executive functions in association between age and quality of life domains. For this purpose the study formulated the following hypotheses: i) age would be negatively correlated with quality of life domains, ii) executive functioning would be negatively correlated with age in drug users, iii) executive functioning would be positively correlated with quality of life domains, iv) executive functioning would mediate the association between age and quality of life domains in drug users. The present study used a correlation research design and convenient sampling technique to assess correlation between age, executive functioning, and quality of life domains in drug users. Participants were selected from six government and private sector hospitals from Lahore. The participants were 111 admitted drugs users, in age range between 19 to 39 years (M=27.73 & SD=5.25). All selected participants were male. Two scales from Delis Kaplan Executive Functioning System (DKEFS) were used to measure their level of executive functioning and World Health Organization Quality of Life-BRIEF (WHOQOL-Bref) scale was used to measure the quality of life. In order to assess these hypotheses; correlation and regression analyses were calculated. The results from correlation and regression analyses showed that i) age was significantly and negatively correlated with psychological, social, and environmental but not with physical quality of life, ii) executive functioning was negatively correlated with age, iii) executive functioning was positively correlated with all four quality of life domains, iv) executive functioning mediated the association age with three quality of life domains including psychological, social, and environmental quality of life.