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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1545497
This article is part of the Research Topic Healthy ageing, social psychiatry of older adults and family caregivers View all 6 articles
Prevalence and factors influencing disability and cognitive impairment among empty nesters and non-empty nesters in Guangdong, China: A cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted- Department of Cardiology, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China
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Background: Disability and cognitive impairment affect the physical and mental health of older adults individuals and also impose a heavy burden on families and society. As a threat to their health, the growing trend of empty nesting among older adults individuals is attracting widespread attention.Objective: To investigate the status of disability and cognitive impairment among empty nesters and non-empty nesters in Guangdong Province and to analyse the differences in their influencing factors to provide a scientific basis for the prevention and control of disability among empty nesters and non-empty nesters.: Using the stratified random cluster sampling method, we recruited 5603 individuals older adults 60 years and older from 21 cities in Guangdong Province in southern China, comprising 1512 empty nesters and 4091 non-empty nesters. Physical function and cognitive impairment were assessed with the ability to perform basic activities of daily living (BADLs) and scores on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Binary logistic regression was performed to analyse the risk factors in the two groups.The prevalence of disability and cognitive impairment among empty nesters was significantly higher than that in non-empty nesters (40.15% vs. 35.74%, 27.51% vs. 23.52%, respectively). Common influencing factors for the occurrence of disability in empty nesters and non-empty nesters were as follows. Binary logistic regression showed that the average monthly
Keywords: empty nest, older adults, Disability, cognitive impairment, Root Cause Analysis
Received: 16 Dec 2024; Accepted: 13 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Guo, Yang, Lin, Zhang and Tiemei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jinhua Guo, Department of Cardiology, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China
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