Association between Productive Roles and Frailty Factors among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

The employment rate of older people in Japan is expected to increase in the future owing to the increase in the retirement age. Preventing frailty is imperative to maintaining productive roles of older adults. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the association between productive roles and frailty factors among community-dwelling older adults. A total of 135 older adults, enrolled in 2017, participated in the study. Productive roles and domains related to frailty were measured. We measured usual gait speed and grip strength for the physical domain; Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) scores for the cognitive and mental domains; and social role and group activity for the social domain. Multivariate-adjusted logistic regression models revealed that having productive roles was associated with faster usual gait speed (odds ratios [OR] = 1.05; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01–1.08; p = 0.005) and lower GDS-15 score (OR = 0.79; 95% CI, 0.64–0.97; p = 0.023). These results suggest that health promotion to maintain gait speed and prevent depressive symptoms may contribute to maintaining productivity in community-dwelling older adults.