Prospective Study on the Impact of Fear of Falling on Functional Decline among Community Dwelling Elderly Women

Kyungwon Choi, Gyeong-Suk Jeon and Sung-il Cho
Additional contact information
Kyungwon Choi: Department of Nursing, Korea National University of Transportation, 61 Daehak-ro, Jeungpyeong-gun Chungbuk 27909, Korea
Gyeong-Suk Jeon: Department of Nursing, Mokpo National University, 1666 Yeongsan-ro, Cheonggye-myeon, Muan-gun, Jeollanam-do 534-729, Korea
Sung-il Cho: Graduate School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Korea

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-11

Abstract: Fear of falling (FOF) is expected to have effects on functional decline in the elderly. In this study, we examined over 2 years the effect of change in FOF on functional decline in community dwelling elderly. We conducted a secondary analysis using data from elderly women, 70 years of age and older, who participated in the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). Participants were divided into four categories according to change in FOF between the 2010 and 2012 surveys. Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted regarding the effects of changes in FOF on functional decline after controlling for variables as known risk factors for functional decline. Rates of functional decline were highest in the “consistently having FOF” group, whereas they were lowest in the “consistently no FOF” group in both 2010 and 2012. Characteristics independently associated with functional decline were change in FOF, depressive symptoms, low frequency of meeting friends, and fear-induced activity avoidance. Longer exposure to FOF was associated with an increased risk of functional decline. FOF is an important health problem that deserves attention in its own right. Public health approaches for elderly persons should address early detection, prevention, and intervention programs for FOF.

Keywords: fear of falling; functional decline; elderly; disability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/5/469/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/5/469/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:5:p:469-:d:96959

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().