Health-related and socio-demographic factors for self-monitoring of daily activities among community-dwelling older adults.

Background: This study aimed to examine the health-related and sociodemographic factors associated with voluntary continuous self-monitoring of activities in older adults.

Methods: A total of 1509 community-dwelling older adults (mean age: 79.2 ± 3.8 years; 50.5% female) received a specialized booklet and a pedometer. They engaged in self-monitoring of their activities at their own pace. The participants used the booklet to record each day the number of steps and whether they performed physical, cognitive, and social activities. Based on a prior study, engagement in self-monitoring was assessed according to the percentage of days in a year with recorded activities: no-engagement (0% of days), mid-level engagement (0.1%-89.9% of days), and high-engagement group (≥90% of days).

Results: Multinomial logistic regression models, referring to the no-engagement group, showed that being cognitively intact was associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) for higher engagement in self-monitoring against cognitive impairment (OR 2.19-2.58). Being physically non-frail showed an increased OR against physical frailty (OR 1.31-1.45), while higher subjective health showed a lower OR against subjective unhealthiness (OR 0.60-0.62).

Conclusions: This study suggested cognitively intact, physically non-frail, and subjectively unhealthy are factors of continuous self-monitoring of activities.