Effects of falls on self-rated health and anxiety in Chinese elderly chronic multimorbid patients : moderating role of psychological resilience

Abstract

Introduction This study enquired into the effects of falls on self-rated health and anxiety symptoms, and the moderating role of psychological resilience in China's elderly chronic multimorbid patients. Methods Data were taken from the 2018 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). We used the linear regression model to delve into the association among falls and self-rated health and anxiety symptoms, the moderating roles of psychological resilience was verifed by the moderation analysis, and we also used the replacement model to test the robustness. Finally, the results of the study were further verified by completing the heterogeneity analysis through subgroup regression. Results 3141 older people with chronic multimorbidity were included in our study. The linear regression results showed that falling behavior was significantly negatively correlated with self-rated health symptoms of Chinese elderly chronic multimorbid patients (β = -0.2017, p < 0.01), and significantly positively correlated with anxiety symptoms (β = 0.7284, p < 0.01). Among the moderating effects, we found that psychological resilience played a moderating role between falling behavior and anxiety symptoms (β = − 0.147 [-0.214, -0.079], p < 0.01). Finally, we found heterogeneity in the study results by gender and place of residence. Conclusion The presence of falls tends to make Chinese elderly chronic multimorbid patients develop poorer self-rated health and higher anxiety levels. High levels of psychological resilience have a moderating effect on inhibiting the development of anxiety symptoms.