ACCESSIBILITY AND USE OF INFORMATION AS PREDICTORS OF QUALITY OF LIFE

The quality of life of people in developing countries, including Nigeria, is often adjudged to be lower than the expected standard. This is worse with women living in the rural areas whose lives are characterised by inadequate access and use of basic amenities of life. The situation is compounded by the women's lack of access to valuable information and non-utilisation of available information which could help them meet the challenges of daily living. The rural environment and the attendant socio-economic milieu pose additional limitation to the women's quality of life. Studies relating informational factors to quality of life of rural women appear to be rare in the field of library science. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which information accessibility, utilisation and socio-economic variables (age, education, occupation, marital status, number of children, household size, type of house, rural dwelling status, employment status, income, average spending on food and standard of living), could predict the quality of life of rural women in Nigeria.