The relationship between coronavirus-related anxiety on physical frailty, psychological frailty, and social frailty in older community-dwellers in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Most activities in community centers have declined as a countermeasure against the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, multidimensional frailty rates gradually worsened. This research aimed to explore coronavirus-related anxiety and others factors that influence physical, psychological, and social frailty in older community-dwellers in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Two hundred and eight (208) elderlies over 65 years of age who lived in 12 administrative districts of Taipei City during the COVID-19 pandemic completed online questionnaires. The questionnaire asked for basic information, and included the coronavirus Pandemic Anxiety Scale, SARC-CalF of physical frailty, the Tilburg Frailty Indicator of psychological frailty, and the Questionnaire to define Social Frailty Status. Data were collected from 21 Ma y to 4 June 2022. They were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: The average scores for coronavirus anxiety was 2.61, physical frailty was 1.28, psychological frailty was 1.67, and social frailty was 2.25. Regression analysis indicated that the degree of anxiety-related symptoms was associated with physical and psychological frailty in older community-dwellers (p < 0.01, p ¼ 0.002). Conclusions: The anxiety related to coronaviruses in older community-dwellers affected their physical, psychological, and social frailty in Taiwan. We considered anxiety-related symptoms when assessing the frailty status of elderly to better understand their physical and mental health. Thus, these data support policy recommendations to reduce the effects of the elderly's anxiety-related symptoms on their frailty in future pandemics. © 2023 College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.