JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Older adults often access traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, for health information. However, frail older adults experience declines in physical functions and mental health, including depressive symptoms, and social functions due to reduced interaction with others, which may limit their access to these sources of information compared with non-frail older adults.

Objective:

This study aimed to identify the health information sources that are less accessible to frail older adults than non-frail individuals.

Methods:

A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted among independent Japanese adults aged ≥75 years. We assessed frailty using the Questionnaire of Medical Checkup for Old-Old, with a score of ≥4 indicating frailty. Participants were asked whether they had accessed any health information source in the past year, including medical institutions, family members, friends or acquaintances, neighbors, government agencies, long-term care or welfare services, television, radio, the internet, magazines, newspapers, or books. The primary explanatory variable was frailty status. Covariates included age, sex, income, education, living arrangements, and health literacy, measured using the eHealth Literacy Scale.

Results:

In total, 1,032 participants (50.2% male; median age: 77 years) were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that frail participants had significantly less access to the following sources of information compared with non-frail individuals: family (odds ratio [OR] = 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.50–0.95), friends/acquaintances (OR = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.51–0.98), radio (OR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.31–0.79), and newspapers (OR = 0.66; 95% CI: 0.50–0.88). Subgroup analyses based on sex revealed no significant interaction effects, indicating no heterogeneity in the findings.

Conclusions:

Frail older adults are less likely to obtain health information from interpersonal and traditional media sources than non-frail individuals. Health information providers need to devise strategies for delivering accurate information and improving usability to enable frail older adults to proactively access diverse health information.