Physical and Psychological Factors Contributing to Incidental Falls in Older Adults Who Perceive Themselves as Unhealthy: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Falls have become one of the common causes of morbidity and mortality in the elderly. Advanced age is a strong predictor of falls. Additionally, those who perceive themselves as unhealthy are more likely to suffer from incidental falls in accordance with aging. We aimed to compare individual, physical, and psychological factors between older adults with and without a fall history. Then, we tried to identify physical and psychological variables associated with falls by controlling for individual characteristics. We analyzed public data from the 2017 National Survey of Older Persons in South Korea. Seniors aged 65 years and over who considered themselves in poor health status were eligible. A total of 2765 women and 1280 men (n = 4045) were enrolled, and 940 adults suffered a fall within a year (the average number of falls was 2.5). We applied individual variable-adjusted models and discovered that hearing discomfort (odds ratio (OR) 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09-1.55), limited activities of daily living (ADL) (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.13-1.74), limited instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.13-1.61), and depression (OR 1.44, 95% CI 1.23-1.69) significantly increased risk for falls on multivariate logistic regression. Our findings suggest that hearing discomfort, limited ADL/IADL, and depression need to be addressed observantly to prevent falls in the elderly who consider themselves unhealthy.