Examining the cross‐validity of 12 frailty‐related items within the Health Assessment Questionnaire for Older Adults: Insights from annual health checkups in Japan

Abstract

Sarcopenia status was not significantly associated with any of the marital relationship variables.These results suggest that the marital relationship is correlated with QOL among older adults with CI when adjusting for only age and sex, but that sarcopenia status is significantly involved in the correlation.QOL-HC was developed because of the difficulty of QOL assessment among people who are physically frail, and it focuses on factors other than physical function, such as perceived social support and relationships with surroundings. 2 On the other hand, EQ-5D measures functional capacity, capacity for social activities, and daily health status. This could explain the results that the marital relationship assessed in terms of conversation time was more strongly correlated with QOL-HC than with EQ-5D score when adjusting for age and sex, and that patients who could travel with their spouse at least occasionally had a better EQ-5D score.The small number of participants in this study may have influenced the results. Future longitudinal studies with a larger number of couples are needed in order to more broadly reflect the range of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and other psychological issues. Nevertheless, this study is the first to consider the association between marital relationship and QOL among older adults with mild CI. Our results support the idea that physical frailty, such as sarcopenia, has an impact on the association between marital relationship and QOL.This study suggests that the marital relationship is involved in QOL among those with CI, but sarcopenia status seems to play an important role in the association between marital relationship and QOL. Further studies on the correlation between marital relationship and QOL are needed.