FEAR OF FALLING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE ELDERLY ATTENDING A FAMILY MEDICINE CLINIC IN SOUTH-SOUTH NIGERIA.

Introduction: Aging is linked to increased morbidity, higher fear of falling (FOF), and decreased activity, with attendant hampered of quality of life (QOL) in the elderly. Therefore, this study determined the relationship between Fear of falling and Quality of life among the elderly attending a tertiary hospital in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Method: This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study where 292 participants were recruited by a systematic sampling method and the data was collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire (which includes age and gender, the Modified Fall Efficacy scale to assess FOL and the 12-item short health survey form [SF-12] to asses QOL). The SPSS version 26.0 was used to perform the data analysis.

Results: The mean age of the respondents was 68.5 years ±6.6 years. More of the participants were females and they were more likely than males to be very fearful of falling (37.7% vs 11.1%, respectively). Females aged 60-69 (36.3%) were most likely to express a fear of falling. The PCS-12 correlated with fear of falling as the scores were very low indicating that respondents had some level of loss of physical function. MCS did not correlate with Fear of falling as the scores were fair in both those with a FOF (MFES< 7.99) and those without a FOF (MFES>8).

Conclusion: The observed correlation between FOF and QOL domain scores suggests that Fear of falling should be routinely investigated among the elderly irrespective of reason(s) for encounter.