The Role of Subjective Health in the Longitudinal Relationship between Social Participation and Cognitive Function during Successful Aging in Older Adults

Key Points

• The research aims to examine the mediating effect of subjective health in the longitudinal relationship between social participation and cognitive function.
• Utilized data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) from 2014 to 2020.
• Analyzed a sample of 2,956 older adults aged 65 years and above.
• Employed a parallel latent growth model to estimate initial levels and change rates of social participation, subjective health, and cognitive function.
• Verified the significance of the mediating effect using the bootstrapping method.
• Significant trajectory changes in social participation and cognitive function over time were observed.
• Older adults with higher social participation tended to maintain relatively higher cognitive function levels.
• Changes in social participation indirectly affected cognitive function changes through variations in subjective health, confirming a partial mediating effect of subjective health.

Abstract