Association of chair stand performance with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in older adults with hypertension: A 28-country study

Objective

To assess the prospective association of chair stand performance with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in older adults with hypertension.

Methods

From the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) study, we included 18,252 adults aged 50 years or more with hypertension from 28 countries (27 European countries and Israel). Chair stand performance was assessed by the time taken to complete five chair stands. We used time-varying Cox regression with restricted cubic splines to determine the prospective association of chair stand time with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, controlling for various confounders.

Key results

Over a mean follow-up of 3.5 years, 648 participants died, with 243 deaths attributed to cardiovascular disease. Using the median chair stand time (11 s) as a reference, both faster and slower times were associated with altered mortality risk in a curvilinear fashion. For all-cause mortality, the 10th percentile of chair stand time (7 s) showed a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.71 (95 % CI 0.60–0.85), while the 90th percentile (19 s) showed a HR of 1.20 (95 % CI 1.10–1.32). For cardiovascular mortality, the 10th percentile showed a subdistribution hazard ratio (SHR) of 0.72 (95 % CI 0.53–0.97), while the 90th percentile showed a SHR of 1.28 (95 % CI 1.10–1.48).

Conclusion

Chair stand performance is gradually and inversely associated with risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in older adults with hypertension. These findings highlight the potential of the chair stand test as a prognostic measure.