Prospective associations between subjective age and fear of falling in older adults

Abstract

Objective

Subjective age has been implicated in a range of health outcomes but its associations with Fear of Falling (FoF) are unknown. The present study examined the relation between subjective age and FoF in large national sample.

Methods

Participants were drawn from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS, 2011–2017). 1,679 participants provided data on FoF, subjective age, demographic factors, depressive symptoms, prior falls, self-rated health and measures of the Short Physical Performance Battery. FoF was assessed again 7 years later.

Results

Regression analyses revealed that an older subjective age was related to a 24% higher likelihood to develop FoF 7 years later. This association was independent of age, sex, educational attainment, race and prior falls. In addition, depressive symptoms, self-rated health, and physical inactivity mediated the associations between subjective age and FoF.

Conclusions

The present study showed that an older subjective age is related to the development of FoF over time, and further identified psychological and functional pathways that may explain this association. These results confirm the role of subjective age on one of the markers of frailty in the aging population.

KEYWORDS:

• Subjective age
• fear of falling
• longitudinal

Disclosure statement

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01AG053297 and R21AG057917. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Funding

The NHATS is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA U01AG032947) and conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. NHATS data are available at: https://www.nhatsdata.org/.