Abstract
The association of resilience-related factors with frailty is a recent research topic. Dispositional optimism and context sensitivity are two psychological factors that differently contribute to individual resilience. This study aimed at investigating whether dispositional optimism and context sensitivity might contribute to a multifactorial model of frailty, together with established relevant factors such as cognitive and physical factors. This cross-sectional study involved 141 elderly outpatients (42 males and 99 females) aged ≥65 years, who were referred to the Geriatrics and Multidimensional Evaluation Clinic of the University Hospital of Messina. We used the following measures: the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) to screen for global cognitive functioning; 4-m gait speed and handgrip strength to measure physical performance; a 35-item Frailty Index (FI) to evaluate patients’ frailty status; the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) to gauge dispositional optimism; and the Context Sensitivity Index (CSI) to measure context sensitivity. We found that LOT-R (β = −0.190, p = 0.038), CSI (β = −0.191, p = 0.035), and MMSE (β = −0.466, p < 0.001) were all significantly associated with FI. Gait speed was only marginally associated with FI (β = −0.184, p = 0.053). The present study showed a novel association of dispositional optimism and context sensitivity with frailty among elderly outpatients. These preliminary findings support a multidimensional approach to frailty in which even peculiar psychological features might provide a significant contribution.
Highlights
The complex and joint interaction between different bio-psycho-social factors is a distinctive trait of aging trajectories
The deficit accumulation model proposes a multidimensional evaluation of frailty based on the weight of different age-related problems accumulated over time; in this model, frailty is measured using a Frailty Index (FI) calculated as the ratio between the deficits an individual presents and the number of age-related health variables considered in the evaluation
The elderly outpatients classified as frail were significantly less educated than those classified as not frail (p = 0.012)
Summary
The complex and joint interaction between different bio-psycho-social factors is a distinctive trait of aging trajectories. Context Sensitivity, and Frailty among subjects with psychopathological problems (Marchetti et al, 2019; Rosa et al, 2019; Vicario et al, 2019) and among patients with chronic medical conditions (Di Giuseppe et al, 2018, 2019, 2020; Quattropani et al, 2018b; Martino et al, 2020a). Several studies have recently highlighted the importance of clinical psychological features in handling the consequences of age-related medical conditions for both patients (Quattropani et al, 2018a; Catalano et al, 2019, 2020; Kelly et al, 2019; Marchi et al, 2019; Martino et al, 2020c) and health professionals (Quattropani et al, 2017; Conversano et al, 2020). The deficit accumulation model proposes a multidimensional evaluation of frailty based on the weight of different age-related problems accumulated over time; in this model, frailty is measured using a Frailty Index (FI) calculated as the ratio between the deficits an individual presents and the number of age-related health variables considered in the evaluation
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