The Prevalence and Association Between Social Support and Physical Activity Among the Rural Community-Dwelling Older Women in a Southeast Asian Country

Abstract

While physical activity ensures healthy aging, rural community-dwelling older women tend to be more physically inactive compared with their counterparts in Malaysia. As social support is one of the key determinants of physical activity, this retrospective, cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of physical activity and its association with social support among 1,221 rural community-dwelling older women in Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The prevalence of physical activity among older women was 45.1% with the highest prevalence reported for housework domain (52.3%). The total mean Duke Social Support index score was 27.24 ± 3.40. Multivariate analysis reported age, employment status, and income level to demonstrate significant association with the physical activity after adjusting for confounders. Older women with an increase in social interaction score were more likely (odds ratio = 1.22; 95% confidence interval [1.10, 1.34]; p < .001) to have high physical activity when adjusted for sociodemographic, health, mental health, and physical disability. Contrarily, older women with an increase in one subjective social support score were less likely (odds ratio = 0.91; 95% confidence interval [0.87, 0.96]; p < .001) to have high physical activity when adjusted for confounders. The findings were insightful to tailor interventions on promoting social support for physical activity enhancement among older women.