Association between social capital and frailty and the mediating effect of health-promoting lifestyles in Chinese older adults: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: To explore the association between social capital and frailty and the mediating effect of health-promoting lifestyles among Chinese older adults, while providing scientific evidence for frailty intervention. METHODS: In May 2021, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 674 Chinese older adults in Changsha city. Data was collected using the Chinese Shortened Social Capital Scale (comprising structural social capital and cognitive social capital as two subscales), a simplified version of the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile and the Tilburg Frailty Indicator. Linear regression analysis was used to examine the association between social capital and frailty. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediating effect of health-promoting lifestyles. RESULTS: Cognitive social capital was significantly negatively associated with frailty and its three dimensions (physical, psychological, and social frailty), but structural social capital was not. Health-promoting lifestyles played a mediating role in the associations of cognitive social capital with frailty, physical and psychological frailty, but not with social frailty. CONCLUSIONS: Higher cognitive social capital was associated with a reduced likelihood of frailty. The health-promoting lifestyles partially mediated the association between cognitive social capital and frailty. The use of health-promoting lifestyles or appropriate cognitive social capital interventions may reduce frailty among older adults. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-02815-z.