The perks of doing housework: Longitudinal associations with survival and underlying mechanisms

Chu, L; Gong, X; Lay, JC; et al.Zhang, F; Fung, HH; Kwok, T
Date: 6 June 2023
Journal
BMC Geriatrics
Publisher
BioMed Central (BMC)
Related links
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37280557
http://www.jococ.org/en/mros-msos.php
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although the majority of existing literature has suggested positive effects of housework on older adults' health and survival rate, the underlying mechanisms of such effects remain unclear. To address potential mechanisms, the present study examined the association between older adults' housework engagement and days of ...
BACKGROUND: Although the majority of existing literature has suggested positive effects of housework on older adults' health and survival rate, the underlying mechanisms of such effects remain unclear. To address potential mechanisms, the present study examined the association between older adults' housework engagement and days of survival across 14 years and tested three potential mediation pathways in this association. METHODS: Four thousand Hong Kong older adults (50% female; aged between 65 and 98 years) participated in a longitudinal study in which they reported initial housework engagement and health status across three domains (cognitive functioning, physical health, and mental health) at the baseline, and the numbers of days they survived over the subsequent 14-year period were recorded. Linear regression, Cox proportional hazard, and parallel mediation analyses were performed to examine the relationship between housework engagement and days survived, and the mediating effects of these three health factors. RESULTS: The results showed a positive association between housework engagement and days survived after controlling for demographic variables (age, sex, education, marital status, subjective social status, and living alone). Physical health and mental health, but not cognitive functioning, partially mediated the relationship between housework engagement and days survived. The findings suggest that doing housework may contribute to longer survival by improving older adults' physical and mental health. CONCLUSION: The current study confirms positive relations of housework with health and mortality among Hong Kong older adults. As the first study examining the relationships and mediation pathways between doing housework and survival in later life, the findings advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the positive association between housework and mortality and provide insights for future daily-life health-promotion interventions for older adults.
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Psychology

Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.