Is well-being prior to receiving rehabilitation services associated with postrehabilitation mental health and functioning?

Abstract

Objectives

Millions of older adults receive rehabilitation services every year, which aim to restore, maintain, or limit decline in functioning. We examine whether lower reported well-being prior to receiving rehabilitation services is associated with increased odds of worsening anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and impairment in self-care and household activities following rehabilitation.

Methods

Data come from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), an annual survey of a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older. Our sample consists of 811 NHATS participants who, in the 2015 interview, had information on well-being and, in the 2016 interview, reported receiving rehabilitation services in the prior year.

Results

In multivariable logistic regression analyses, compared to the highest quartile, those in the lowest quartile of well-being at baseline have increased odds of having worsening depressive symptoms (OR = 9.25, 95% CI: 3.78–22.63) and worsening impairments in self-care activities (OR = 2.39, 95% CI: 1.12–5.11).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that older adults with the lowest levels of baseline well-being may be susceptible to having worsening depressive symptoms and impairment in self-care activities following rehabilitation services. Examination on whether consideration of well-being during the rehabilitation process could lead to better mental health and functional outcomes following rehabilitation is needed.

Keywords:

• Depression and anxiety
• disabilities
• epidemiology
• function/mobility
• quality of life

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) dataset is publicly available (available at www.nhats.org.), and NHATS was funded by the National Institute on Aging (grant number U01AG032947) through a cooperative agreement with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. AS was supported by the National Institute on Aging (grant number K23AG058757). The funders had no role in our article's design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.