School of Nursing, College of Nursing, Taipei Medical University, Taipei 110301, Taiwan.
Department of Nursing, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, New Taipei City 235041, Taiwan.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 17;19(14):8711. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19148711.
Aging is a major challenge facing modern society and has attracted global attention. Studies have provided some initial evidence that health literacy plays a role in determining frailty; however, most of these studies have used small convenience samples of individuals recruited from geographically limited areas, thus limiting the generalizability of their findings. The present study explored the relationships among health literacy, exercise, and frailty in Taiwanese older adults by using the data of a national population-based survey. We retrieved data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging, a population-based survey. We gathered the 2015 data on the age, sex, education level, marital status, exercise habits, and activities of daily living (ADLs) of each eligible respondent. We evaluated the respondents' health literacy by using a nine-item health literacy scale and categorized their health literacy level as low, medium, or high. Frailty was diagnosed according the Fried criteria. Our final sample consisted of 7702 community-dwelling older adults (3630 men and 4072 adults). Of these, 25.3% had low health literacy. The proportion of respondents who had two or more disabilities in terms of ADLs or instrumental ADLs was higher among the women (36.4% and 12.6%, respectively), and regular exercise was more common among the men (19.6%). Frailty was more prevalent among the women; the prevalence of frailty among the male and female respondents was 4.5% and 8.1%, respectively. High health literacy and regular exercise were protective factors for frailty. According to our results, poor health literacy is a risk factor for prefrailty and frailty, and regular exercise is significantly negatively associated with prefrailty and frailty. Additional studies are necessary to define practical strategies for reducing the risks of disability and death for older adults with low health literacy who do not exercise regularly, thereby improving their quality of life.
老龄化是现代社会面临的主要挑战,已引起全球关注。研究提供了一些初步证据表明,健康素养在确定虚弱方面起着作用;然而,这些研究大多使用了来自地理区域有限的个体的小便利样本,从而限制了他们研究结果的普遍性。本研究通过使用全国性人口调查的数据,探讨了健康素养、运动与台湾老年人虚弱之间的关系。我们从台湾老龄化纵向研究中检索数据,这是一项基于人群的调查。我们收集了每个符合条件的受访者的年龄、性别、教育水平、婚姻状况、运动习惯和日常生活活动(ADL)的 2015 年数据。我们使用九项健康素养量表评估受访者的健康素养,并将其健康素养水平分为低、中、高。根据 Fried 标准诊断虚弱。我们的最终样本包括 7702 名居住在社区的老年人(3630 名男性和 4072 名女性)。其中,25.3%的人健康素养较低。在女性中,有 2 项或 2 项以上 ADL 或工具性 ADL 残疾的受访者比例较高(分别为 36.4%和 12.6%),而男性中经常运动的比例较高(19.6%)。女性中虚弱更为普遍;男性和女性受访者的虚弱发生率分别为 4.5%和 8.1%。高健康素养和经常运动是虚弱的保护因素。根据我们的结果,健康素养较差是衰弱前期和虚弱的危险因素,而定期运动与衰弱前期和虚弱显著负相关。需要进一步的研究来确定针对不经常运动且健康素养较低的老年人的实用策略,以降低残疾和死亡风险,从而提高他们的生活质量。