Correlates of Five Intellectual Abilities in Chinese Older Adults

Abstract

Whether older adults can maintain their independent living in community depends on their level of intellectual functioning. This study identified psychosocial factors contributing to five dimensions of intellectual abilities including verbal meaning, word fluency, spatial orientation, inductive reasoning, and number skill, which were measured by the Chinese version of the Primary Mental Abilities Scale. The respondents were 207 Hong Kong Chinese adults aged 60 years or older, and they were interviewed face to face. In hierarchical regression analyses, the authors found that the majority of variance of five intellectual abilities was accounted for by sociodemographic variables. Moreover, education was consistently associated with all five intellectual abilities, and the Lubben Social Network Scale was also significantly related to all five abilities except verbal meaning. Self-rated visual functioning was also related to respondents’ performance in three intellectual tests including word fluency, spatial orientation, and inductive reasoning.