Abstract
Background: This study aimed to investigate the impact of having a child and the number of children on chronic diseases and geriatric syndromes including frailty, considering the sex of the parent.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted involving community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and above. Demographic data including age, marital status, education level, and the number of children were collected. All participants underwent comprehensive geriatric assessment.
Results: Out of 737 participants, 64.9% were female, with a median of three children. Among women, those with children exhibited higher susceptibility to depression and physical frailty, slower gait speed, lower ADL, IADL, and MNA-SF scores, as well as a higher disease burden. Conversely, men showed no significant changes related to parenthood. The number of children correlated positively with disease burden and depressive symptoms and negatively with education. ROC analysis identified having more than two children as a predictor for physical frailty. However, this association diminished in multivariate regression analysis.
Conclusions: While the number of children correlates with higher disease burden and geriatric syndromes among women different from men, its direct association with physical frailty diminishes when considering other factors.