JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Older adults engage in increased amounts of sedentary behavior (SB), which can result in a significant decline in muscle function and overall health. As a result, various interventions have been developed to reduce SB in older adults. Exploration of psychological factors has been conducted to provide a deeper level of understanding as to what drives older adults to engage in SB. Such explorations help to create effective interventions aimed at reducing SB in older adults. Regulatory Focus Theory, which suggests that two distinct motivational orientations (prevention and promotion) influence the behavior and decision-making of individuals, has been connected to older adults through a relationship found between a prevention motivation focus and negative self-perceptions of aging. Negative self-perceptions of aging in older adults have demonstrated a negative relationship with self-reported physical activity (PA) in previous research, but a direct connection to SB, specifically objectively measured SB, has not yet been determined. Assessing SB via Regulatory Focus Theory in older adults could potentially provide a better understanding of the motivational driving factors that lead older adults to engage in SB.

Objective:

This study aimed to determine the relationship between prevention and promotion focus with SB in older adults, as well as compare those relationships with two factors that are commonly known to have a relationship with SB among older adults: age and Body Mass Index (BMI).

Methods:

A cross-sectional analysis was conducted in 93 community-dwelling older adults with a mean age of 74.98 (SD 6.68) years. Prevention and promotion focus were both assessed using the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ). Correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between SB, prevention focus, promotion focus, age, and BMI. Anderson-Darling tests confirmed nonnormal data distributions for all factors (except for age), so Spearman rank correlation was used to determine correlations between factors.

Results:

Prevention focus score had the highest statistically significant correlation with SB (ρ=0.269, P=.004), followed by BMI (ρ=0.204, P=.049). Both age (ρ=0.116, P=.27) and promotion focus (ρ=0.002, P=.99) had statistically nonsignificant relationships with SB.

Conclusions:

Individuals with a dominant prevention focus are associated with feelings of safety, caution, and loss avoidance. Prevention focus was seen to have a positive relationship with SB in older adults. Age and BMI, both known to have a relationship with SB, had weaker correlations with SB than prevention focus. These findings suggest that older adults could be driven to engage in increased amounts of SB due to having a dominant prevention focus. The recognition of this relationship has the potential to aid in developing intervention programs that could reduce SB in older adults. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05778604)