Physical, social, and dietary behavioral changes during the COVID-19 crisis and their effects on functional capacity in older adults

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2022.104708Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Social behavioral changes were highlighted rather than physical behavioral ones.

  • Using latent class analysis, we identified healthy and unhealthy behavioral groups.

  • We extracted four factors associated with being the unhealthy behavioral group.

  • The unhealthy behavioral group was associated with a decline in functional capacity.

  • Negative behavioral changes were associated with a decline in functional capacity.

Abstract

Background

This two-year follow-up study aimed to identify factors associated with unhealthy behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine their impact on functional capacity in older adults.

Methods

Altogether, 536 adults aged ≥65 years participated in this study. The frequency of going out, exercise habits, face-to-face and non-face-to-face interactions, social participation, and eating habits were examined as behavioral factors before and after the first declaration of a state of emergency in Japan. Functional capacity was assessed using the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology Index of Competence.

Results

Using latent class analysis considering changes in the six behaviors, the participants were divided into healthy (n = 289) and unhealthy (n = 247) behavior groups. The male sex was associated with 2.36 times higher odds, diabetes with 2.19 times higher odds, depressive mood with 1.83 times higher odds, poor subjective economic status with 2.62 times higher odds, and living alone with 44% lower odds of being unhealthy. The unhealthy behavior group showed significantly decreased functional capacity (B =−1.56 [−1.98, −1.14]) than the healthy behavior group. For each behavior, negative changes in going out (B =−0.99 [−1.60, −0.37]), face-to-face interaction (B =−0.65 [−1.16, −0.13]), and non-face-to-face interactions (B =−0.80 [−1.36, −0.25]) were associated with a decline in functional capacity.

Conclusion

Our results showed four factors associated with engaging in unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and how behavioral changes affect functional capacity decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, which will help to develop public health approaches

Keywords

Activities of daily living
COVID-19
Exercise
Functional decline
Social interaction
Social participation

Abbreviations

AIC
Akaike information criterion
BIC
Bayesian information criterion
COVID-19
coronavirus disease 2019
DVS
dietary variety score
LCA
latent class analysis
TMIG-IC
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology Index of Competence

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