Impacts of Sociodemographic Characteristics and Cardinal Health Problems on Health-Related Quality of Life among Korean Older Adults

Comments from the Reviewer 1

Author’s response to the Reviewer 1

Thank you for your rigorous and detailed review of this paper.

In accordance with your recommendations, the revised contents are marked in red in the text.

1.     Line 4 - I don't think it's necessary point after title of paper.

The sentence "among Korean Older Adults" was deleted from the title.

2.     Introduction - The author must present other studies from other countries, not only from Korea, please complete.

The following sentences were rveised and inserted in the introduction.

According to the Korean Statistical Information Service, the proportion of adults aged 65 or older in Korea was 15.7% in 2020 and is expected to reach 33.9% in 2040 [1]. Japan ranked first with 28.4% of the global elderly population, followed by Italy with 23.3% and Portugal with 22.8% in 2020 [1].

Reference also was revised.

3.     Lines 82-91 - it is very important that the author detailed the EuroQol (with 5 -dimension), because is very little presented and is also the basic tool of this research....the author must complete.

It has been modified to the following you pointed out.

The five dimensions of this model are mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/ discomfort, and anxiety/ depression. The survey of the EQ-5D was conducted with the approval of the EuroQol Group (www.euroqol.org). The EQ-5D index was in turn converted into a utility score to summarize the data from the survey of EQ-5D. The limit values of the scale were set at a score of 1, which means a full health state, and 0, which means a state as bad as being dead [2,20].

4.     When use for the first time the term quality of life, then you can put Qol, please correct in all article.

In accordance with your recommendations, the sentence "quality of life" in this paper has been modified with the word "QoL".

5.     Lines 179, 182, 186 - I don't think is good to start the sentence with the same word, i.e. ''Among'', please try to use other synonyms.

There are many synonyms for among, but in this study, "among word" is more appropriate because it means "out of three or more variables".

6.     Discussion - the author must present others studies for other countries, not only from Korea, is interesting if we see a comparative analysis with other similar studies.

In the part of the discussion, I think that data from various countries of the earth, such as Hong Kong, China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Swiss, Switzerland, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Austria etc. were used. In addition, recent papers were added.

7.     Conclusions - must be more detailed, it is very little presented.

In the conclusion section, the contents presented below are added.

The findings implied that public health policies and programs for HRQoL are needed to promote proper physical activity and devise tailored measures for targeted sociodemographic variables among Korean older adults.

Comments from the Reviewer 3

Author’s response to the Reviewer 3

Thank you for your rigorous and detailed review of this paper.

In accordance with your recommendations, the revised contents are marked in red in the text.

1.          In the Introduction does not reflected previous research on a similar base, e.g. Park, B., Ock, M., Lee, H.A. et al. Multimorbidity and health-related quality of life in Koreans aged 50 or older using KNHANES 2013–2014. Health Qual Life Outcomes 16, 186 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-018-1016-6 or Park, S., Ryu, J. M., & Lee, M. (2020). Quality of Life in Older Adults with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 8(2), 158. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8020158

According to your recommendation, Park et al. (2018) paper was cited in the introduction and discussion, and Park et al. (2020) paper in discussion.

2.          The author emphasizes, that the activity limitation is the "only variable to directly and significantly affect HRQoL among Korean older adults", but in the Introduction there is no defenition of this factor.

In the insrments section, actvity limitation was mentioned.

3.          Materials and methods does not contain the decoding of variables used in Table 2. Because of this it is impossible to understand this Table correctly.

According to your recommendation, in materials and methods, related variables were described.

4.          In the discussion author actively used the results of similar researches in other countries, such as England, Canada, Hong Kong, UK, China, India etc., but in the results of research thees datas are absent. The article will be more conclusive, if author add a Table with cross-country comparisons of comparable indicators.

The data presented in Table 2 were added in the results area.

5.          The conclusions could be enhanced with the analysis of the most significantly sociodemographic characteristic.

In conclusions, your recommendations were added.

Comments from the Reviewer 1

Author’s response to the Reviewer 1

• It was not necessary to change the title, I ask you to delete ''.'', written in the initial title, after the word ''Life''.

Deleted words were inserted again.

• From Europe I see that the authors found data in Introduction only for 2 countries, does not exist for others?

Among the countries registered in international statistics, the 65-year-old population ranked 3rd by the highest ranking. The reason is that I thought up to the 3rd ranking was meaningful. Two more countries were added according to your opinion.

Comments from the Reviewer 3

Author’s response to the Reviewer 3

The variables in the Table 2 are still not quite clear. It will not be superfluous to place a legend under the table.

In Table 2, additional explanations were added to promote readers' understanding.