Abstract
About this talk
Background: Multimorbidity burden is associated with Activities of Daily Living (ADL) limitations in community-dwelling older adults, but the potential role of intrinsic capacity in this relationship and whether social support modifies these associations remain unclear.
Objective: To examine the mediating role of intrinsic capacity in the association between multimorbidity burden and ADL limitations and assess the moderating role of social support.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 627 community-dwelling older adults aged 60 years and above in Hunan province, China. Multimorbidity burden, intrinsic capacity, ADL limitations, and social support were assessed. Spearman correlation, mediation, and moderation analyses across multiple pathways were performed, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Robust standard errors and 5,000 bootstrap resamples were used.
Results: Higher multimorbidity burden was associated with lower intrinsic capacity (regression coefficient = −0.232, p < 0.001) and greater ADL limitations (regression coefficient = 0.423, p < 0.001). Intrinsic capacity showed a significant indirect association (indirect effect = 0.259, 95% confidence interval: 0.179 to 0.350), accounting for 61.2% of the total association. Social support was examined as a moderator across four pathways, with a significant interaction observed only between multimorbidity burden and intrinsic capacity (interaction coefficient = 0.005, holm-adjusted p = 0.008). The index of moderated mediation was −0.006 (95% confidence interval: −0.011 to −0.002), indicating that the indirect association weakened as social support increased.
Conclusions: Intrinsic capacity partially mediated the association between multimorbidity burden and ADL limitations, while social support attenuated the negative association between multimorbidity burden and intrinsic capacity. These findings suggest that enhancing intrinsic capacity and strengthening social support may be valuable for promoting functional health among older adults with multimorbidity.
Speaker
About the speaker
