Psychological well-being and incident frailty in men and women: the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Observations that older people who enjoy life more tend to live longer suggest that psychological well-being may be a potential resource for healthier ageing. We investigated whether psychological well-being was associated with incidence of physical frailty. Method We used multinomial logistic regression to examine the prospective relationship between psychological well-being, assessed using the CASP-19, a questionnaire that assesses perceptions of control, autonomy, self-realization and pleasure, and incidence of physical frailty or pre-frailty, defined according to the Fried criteria (unintentional weight loss, weakness, self-reported exhaustion, slow walking speed and low physical activity), in 2557 men and women aged 60 to ⩾90 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).