Relationship of psychological well-being and activities of daily living in older adults following hospitalization: A secondary analysis

The ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) is fundamental to maintaining older people’s independence and quality of life. Service providers, policy makers, and researchers use ADL measures to develop predictive information about functional outcomes related to specific diseases and treatments, to describe the stages and severity of disabling chronic diseases, to plan placement decisions, to determine eligibility for long-term care services, to determine benefits, and to establish new social policies, as well as to predict admission to a nursing home, use of paid home care, use of hospital and physician services, living arrangements, insurance coverage, and mortality. Patients 65 years and older account for over one-third of hospitalizations and this trend is expected to continue in the coming decades as the number of older adults living to an advanced age increases exponentially.\r\n The purpose of this study was to examine the psychological well-being of an older, ethnically diverse patient population admitted to the Acute Care for Elders (ACE) unit at UTMB and the ability to recover ADLs post-discharge. This secondary analysis of data collected on 403 hospitalized older adults through convenience sampling was examined at baseline, and on the longitudinal three month follow-up sample of 218 older adults who had previously participated at baseline.\r\n Key findings of this study included: 1) social support was noted to be a significant predictor of higher psychological well-being scores in five out of six domains, and 2) significant predictors of recovery of ADLs at three month follow-up included length of stay, number of comorbidities, ADL summary at time of hospitalization, and the psychological domain of Environmental Mastery. \r\n Psychological well-being does have a significant relationship with recovery of ADLs and is an important contributor to quality of life in older adults.\r\n