Relationship of hearing impairment, social participation and depressive symptoms to the incidence of frailty in a community cohort

作者：Hongting Ning, Hua Zhang, Zhihai Xie, Weihong Jiang, Shaobing Xie · 发表于：Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1111/jgs.18164 · 被引用次数：26 · 研究领域：Hearing Loss and Rehabilitation、Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes、Frailty in Older Adults

BACKGROUND: The mediating effect of social participation and depressive symptoms on the relationship between hearing impairment and frailty remains unclear. METHODS: A total of 3981 participants from three waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were included. The outcome was incidental frailty. Hearing impairment, social participation, and depressive symptoms were the main variables. Cox regression models and structural equation models were adopted to examine the relationship between hearing impairment, social participation, depressive symptoms, and the incidence of frailty, with adjustments for demographic characteristics and lifestyle variables at baseline. RESULTS: Hearing impairment (hazard ratio [HR] 1.31, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12, 1.74), social participation (HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.55, 0.94), and depressive symptoms (HR 1.78, 95% CI 1.37, 2.30) were associated with the incidence of frailty. Hearing impairment was associated with frailty not only through social participation (β = 0.015, 95% CI 0.003, 0.037) and depressive symptoms (β = 0.070, 95% CI 0.037, 0.116) separately but also through social participation and depressive symptoms sequentially (β = 0.002, 95% CI 0.001, 0.004). Furthermore, the effect of social participation on frailty occurred in participants with hearing impairment, while the effect of depressive symptoms on frailty occurred in participants with normal hearing status. CONCLUSIONS: Hearing impairment is associated wi...