Association between anxiety and frailty in postmenopausal women

Abstract

Objective

To explore the association between anxiety and frailty in community-dwelling postmenopausal women.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study in which 390 postmenopausal women (aged 60–83 years) who were attending a comprehensive care program were surveyed between January 2018 and February 2020. Each participant was administered a validated Spanish version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to assess their anxiety status. Those scoring 8 or higher on the anxiety subscale of the HADS were indicative of anxiety. The assessment of frailty utilized the Fried’s phenotype, with a diagnosis of frailty established if the participant met at least three out of the five criteria. Factors associated with frailty were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression.

Results

The mean age of participants was 70.08 years, with an average of 12.58 ± 3.19 years since menopause. Frailty was diagnosed in 43.85% of the total series, while anxiety was present in 41.08%, rising to 69.59% in participants with frailty. Neither body mass index, years since menopause, educational level, economic status, nor smoking habit demonstrated significant associations with frailty. Upon multivariate analysis, anxiety (OR 8.56), multimorbidity (OR 2.18), and age (OR 2.73) emerged as independently associated with frailty (p < .001, p = .005, and p < .001, respectively).

Conclusions

Among postmenopausal women with frailty, anxiety was detected in over two thirds of cases and was independently associated with frailty. This underscores the relevance of implementing anxiety screening in comprehensive care programs for postmenopausal women, with the goal of improving frailty through anxiety diagnosis and treatment.

Keywords:

• Frailty
• anxiety
• menopause
• multimorbidity
• age

Authors contribution

AG-V and J F-G participated in the building of the database, the acquisition of the data, the literature search and contributed to write the manuscript. PC, A M-T and MA G-P participated in the building of the database, the acquisition of the data, the literature search, and in the critical analysis of papers’ content. JJT, AA and AC participated in the conception of the manuscript, the design of the study, the literature search and the critical analysis of papers’ content. AA and AGV designed the statistical analysis and completed the analysis of the data. AA y AC wrote the draft of the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript critically for important intellectual content and approved the final version to be published.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All required information regarding the study protocol and the collected data will be made available upon reasonable request to researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal. Only the analysis required to achieve the aims in the approved proposal will be permitted. Proposals should be directed to [email protected].

Additional information

Funding

This research received funding from Grant number 664367 FOCUS, from the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) of the European Commission, under the European Union Health Programme (2014–2020).