The relationship of functional limitations to disability and the moderating effects of psychological attributes in community-dwelling older persons

This paper examines the moderating effects of three-psychological attribute s (neuroticism, self-efficacy expectancies and mastery) on the association between functional limitations (motor:and cognitive limitation, vision and hearing loss) and disability ((instrumental) activities of daily living, ro le function and social:function) in a sample of 624 community-dwelling olde r persons. In contrast to our hypothesis, we did not find any evidence for interaction effects. This means that low levels of psychological resources do not exacerbate the effect of functional limitation on disability in comm unity-dwelling older persons. We found significant unique contributions of the psychological attributes to disability. Even when all three psychologic al attributes were taken into account, neuroticism and mastery had unique e ffects on social and role function, and self-efficacy expectancies had uniq ue effects on (instrumental) activities of daily living. We conclude that t he effects of functional limitation and psychological attributes;on disabil ity can be considered as additive. Older persons with less psychological re sources are particularly at risk in developing disability. (C) 1999 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.