High coping self-efficacy associated with lower odds of pre-frailty/frailty in older adults with chronic disease

Abstract

Objectives

Frailty affects an estimated 15% of community dwelling older adults. Few studies look at psychosocial variables like self-efficacy (confidence to perform well at a particular task or life domain) in relation to frailty. The purpose of this study was to evaluate associations between pre-frailty/frailty and self-efficacy.

Methods

This cross-sectional study enrolled community dwelling older adults 65 and older (N = 146) with at least one chronic condition. Scales included: 5-item FRAIL scale (including measures of Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illnesses, and Loss of weight); coping self-efficacy used to measure confidence in one’s ability to problem solve, emotionally regulate and ask for support when problems in life occur; illness intrusiveness; patient health questionnaire to assess depressive symptoms; financial strain; life events count; social support; heart rate; tobacco use and body mass index. Logistic regression was used for model development.

Results

Roughly half (49.3%) of the participants were frail/pre-frail. High coping self-efficacy was associated with a 92% decreased odds of pre-frailty/frailty after adjustment for age, sex, race, co-morbidities, heart rate, a life events count, and body mass index. This relationship remained significant when illness intrusiveness and depression scores were added to the model (OR: 0.10; p-value = 0.014). Increases in age, co-morbidities, heart rate and body mass index were also significantly associated with higher adjusted odds of pre-frailty/frailty.

Conclusions

High coping self-efficacy was associated with greater odds of a robust state. Further consideration should be given to coping self-efficacy in frailty research and intervention development.

Keywords:

• Frailty
• coping self-efficacy
• chronic disease
• healthy aging
• older adults

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Dr. Gayle Page, Svetlana Bautista and Christine Leyden for their contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by: (1) National Institute of Health Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Clinical and Translational Science Award (4TL1TR001078-04), (2) Dr. Scholl Foundation Fellowship, (3) National Institute of Health, National Institute of Nursing Research Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Health Research (T32NR012704), (4) National Institute of Health, National Institute of Nursing Research Intramural Research Program and (5) Johns Hopkins University Provost’s Post-Doctoral Fellowship.