Physical functioning in older blacks: an exploratory study identifying psychosocial and clinical predictors.

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this investigation was to examine the relationship between physical functioning and various clinical (pain intensity, pain locations, medications, comorbidities) and psychosocial (depression, locus of control) variables in a sample of older blacks.
METHODS: Data were collected from community-dwelling black adults (N=247), with a mean age of 69.4 +/- 9.4 years. Participants were recruited from several senior high-rise facilities located in an urban community in Baltimore, MD. A multivariate regression model was tested to determine the relationship between selected clinical, psychosocial and demographic characteristics, and physical functioning; and to assess the amount of unique variance in functional status accounted for by specific psychosocial, clinical and demographic indicators (independently and collectively).
RESULTS: It was established that reporting more depressive symptoms (beta=0.18, p<0.05), multiple pain locations (beta=0.25, p<0.01) and pain intensity (beta=0.30, p<0.01) was a significant indicator of physical impairment and accounted for 36% of its variation.
CONCLUSION: Identifying indicators of physical impairment is critical in providing baseline information on the functional well-being in older blacks. This emphasizes the need for further studies to rigorously examine the relationship between physical functioning, and clinical and psychosocial indicators within defined race and ethnic groups in order to develop data that provide meaningful comparisons between different race and ethnic groups.