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Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study

BACKGROUND: Social networks are associated with better cognitive health in older people, but the role of specific aspects of the social network remains unclear. This is especially the case in Central and Eastern Europe. This study examined associations between three aspects of the social network (ne...

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Autores principales: Nie, Yifan, Richards, Marcus, Kubinova, Ruzena, Titarenko, Anastasiya, Malyutina, Sofia, Kozela, Magdalena, Pajak, Andrzej, Bobak, Martin, Ruiz, Milagros
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8524850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34663241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02531-0
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author Nie, Yifan
Richards, Marcus
Kubinova, Ruzena
Titarenko, Anastasiya
Malyutina, Sofia
Kozela, Magdalena
Pajak, Andrzej
Bobak, Martin
Ruiz, Milagros
author_facet Nie, Yifan
Richards, Marcus
Kubinova, Ruzena
Titarenko, Anastasiya
Malyutina, Sofia
Kozela, Magdalena
Pajak, Andrzej
Bobak, Martin
Ruiz, Milagros
author_sort Nie, Yifan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Social networks are associated with better cognitive health in older people, but the role of specific aspects of the social network remains unclear. This is especially the case in Central and Eastern Europe. This study examined associations between three aspects of the social network (network size of friends and relatives, contact frequency with friends and relatives, and social activity participation) with cognitive functions (verbal memory, learning ability, verbal fluency, processing speed, and global cognitive function) in older Czech, Polish, and Russian adults. METHODS: Linear regression estimated associations between baseline social networks and cognitive domains measured at both baseline and follow-up (mean duration of follow-up, 3.5 ± 0.7 years) in 6691 participants (mean age, 62.2 ± 6.0 years; 53.7% women) from the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) study. RESULTS: Cross-sectional analyses, adjusted for country, age, and sex, showed positive associations of global cognitive function with social activity participation and network size of friends and relatives, but not with contact frequency in either network. Further adjustment for sociodemographic, behavioural, and health characteristics attenuated the associations with network size of relatives (P-trend = 0.074) but not with network size of friends (P-trend = 0.036) or social activities (P-trend< 0.001). In prospective analyses, network size and social activity participation were also linked with better cognition in simple models, but the associations were much stronger for social activities (P-trend< 0.001) than for network size of friends (P-trend = 0.095) and relatives (P-trend = 0.425). Adjustment for baseline cognition largely explained the prospective associations with network size of friends (P-trend = 0.787) and relatives (P-trend = 0.815), but it only slightly attenuated the association with social activities (P-trend< 0.001). The prospective effect of social activities was largely explained by sociodemographic, health behavioural, and health covariates (P-trend = 0.233). Analyses of specific cognitive domains generally replicated the cross-sectional and prospective findings for global cognitive function. CONCLUSIONS: Older Central and Eastern European adults with larger social networks and greater social activities participation had better cognitive function, but these associations were stronger at baseline than over the short-term follow-up. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-021-02531-0.
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spelling pubmed-85248502021-10-22 Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study Nie, Yifan Richards, Marcus Kubinova, Ruzena Titarenko, Anastasiya Malyutina, Sofia Kozela, Magdalena Pajak, Andrzej Bobak, Martin Ruiz, Milagros BMC Geriatr Research BACKGROUND: Social networks are associated with better cognitive health in older people, but the role of specific aspects of the social network remains unclear. This is especially the case in Central and Eastern Europe. This study examined associations between three aspects of the social network (network size of friends and relatives, contact frequency with friends and relatives, and social activity participation) with cognitive functions (verbal memory, learning ability, verbal fluency, processing speed, and global cognitive function) in older Czech, Polish, and Russian adults. METHODS: Linear regression estimated associations between baseline social networks and cognitive domains measured at both baseline and follow-up (mean duration of follow-up, 3.5 ± 0.7 years) in 6691 participants (mean age, 62.2 ± 6.0 years; 53.7% women) from the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe (HAPIEE) study. RESULTS: Cross-sectional analyses, adjusted for country, age, and sex, showed positive associations of global cognitive function with social activity participation and network size of friends and relatives, but not with contact frequency in either network. Further adjustment for sociodemographic, behavioural, and health characteristics attenuated the associations with network size of relatives (P-trend = 0.074) but not with network size of friends (P-trend = 0.036) or social activities (P-trend< 0.001). In prospective analyses, network size and social activity participation were also linked with better cognition in simple models, but the associations were much stronger for social activities (P-trend< 0.001) than for network size of friends (P-trend = 0.095) and relatives (P-trend = 0.425). Adjustment for baseline cognition largely explained the prospective associations with network size of friends (P-trend = 0.787) and relatives (P-trend = 0.815), but it only slightly attenuated the association with social activities (P-trend< 0.001). The prospective effect of social activities was largely explained by sociodemographic, health behavioural, and health covariates (P-trend = 0.233). Analyses of specific cognitive domains generally replicated the cross-sectional and prospective findings for global cognitive function. CONCLUSIONS: Older Central and Eastern European adults with larger social networks and greater social activities participation had better cognitive function, but these associations were stronger at baseline than over the short-term follow-up. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-021-02531-0. BioMed Central 2021-10-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8524850/ /pubmed/34663241 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02531-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Nie, Yifan
Richards, Marcus
Kubinova, Ruzena
Titarenko, Anastasiya
Malyutina, Sofia
Kozela, Magdalena
Pajak, Andrzej
Bobak, Martin
Ruiz, Milagros
Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title_full Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title_fullStr Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title_full_unstemmed Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title_short Social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the HAPIEE study
title_sort social networks and cognitive function in older adults: findings from the hapiee study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8524850/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34663241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-021-02531-0
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