ABSTRACT

Background: Mobility is important for all individuals to maintain functional independence, improve quality of life, and prevent worsening of morbidities. The older population are more susceptible to mobility limitation due to varied factors which include contextual factors such as cognitive, environmental, financial, personal, physical, psychological and social factors. Identifying these factors may help health care practitioners improve intervention designs and policies to promote geriatric health optimally.

Aim: To determine the environmental, financial, and personal factors that community-dwelling older adults in Nigeria consider critical for influencing their mobility within the community and to examine demographic and mobility variables that may predict their selection.

Methods: 400 older adults from the age of 60 and above were selected based on convenience from Egor local government area, Benin city. A questionnaire was used to assess sociodemographic data, mobility variables, 17 environmental, 3 financial and 11 personal factors with each factor to be rated as important, not important and critical. For all the mobility factors that did not meet the criteria for prioritization, the predictive ability of demographic and mobility variables was examined among factors considered as critical versus not critical. 

Results: None of the 17 environmental, 3 financial, or 11 personal mobility factors met the criteria for prioritization. However, 9 environmental factors, 3 financial factors and 1 personal factor were considered important for mobility among the study participants. Compared to rating a mobility factor as “Critical”, only life-spacing assessment scores consistently predicted participants rating factors as “Not Important”.

Conclusions: None of the environmental, financial and personal factors were considered critical for older adults’ mobility. Nevertheless, older adults considered some environmental, financial and personal factors as important for their mobility. More studies are needed from other geographical areas, socioeconomic rankings and various cultural settings in Nigeria to establish the critical mobility factors amongst older adults.

Keywords: Environmental, financial, personal, mobility, factors, community-dwelling, older adults.