Social participation and the combination of future needs for long-term care and mortality among older Japanese people: a prospective cohort study from the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study (AGES)

OBJECTIVES: Our study aimed to examine the longitudinal association between social participation and both mortality and the need for long-term care (LTC) simultaneously. DESIGN: A prospective cohort study with 9.4 years of follow-up. SETTING: Six Japanese municipalities. PARTICIPANTS: The participants were 15 313 people who did not qualify to receive LTC insurance at a baseline based on the data from the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study (AGES, 2003–2013). They received a questionnaire to measure social participation and other potential confounders. Social participation was defined as participating in at least one organisation from eight categories. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcomes were classified into three categories at the end of the 9.4 years observational period: living without the need for LTC, living with the need for LTC and death. We estimated the adjusted OR (AOR) using multinomial logistic regression analyses with adjustment for possible confounders. RESULTS: The primary analysis included 9741 participants. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that social participation was associated with a significantly lower risk of the need for LTC (AOR 0.82, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.97) or death (AOR 0.78, 95% CI 0.70 to 0.88). CONCLUSIONS: Social participation may be associated with a decreased risk of the need for LTC and mortality among elderly patients.