Abstract

Background This cross-sectional study was conducted to examine prevalence of fear of falling and their association with measures of health conditions, functional impairment and activities of daily living. Methods The data were collected from 386 Thai community-dwelling adults aged 60 or older during July–December 2010. Fear of falling was measured with a single-item instrument. Participants were asked about basic activities of daily living by using the modified Barthel ADL and they were assessed functional capacities including a balance test and visual acuity test. The data of chronic diseases and the number of medications were collected by reviewing the patients’ medical records. Results Half of the older adults reported a fear of falling sometime, and 36% expressed that they very often had a fear of falling. Fear of falling had highly significant relationships with perceived general health, visual impairment, mobility impairment, balance impairment, stroke, hypertension, antihypertensive drug, number of medications, history of falls, and activities of daily living. In the multivariate analysis, factors associated with fear of falling were balance impairment (OR 3.14; 95% CI 1.74–5.67, P < 0.001), illiteracy (OR 2.18; 95% CI 1.08–4.41), female gender (OR 1.87; 95% CI 1.08–3.23), and poor general health perception (OR 1.77; 95% CI 1.11–2.84). Conclusion Identifying the risk factors of fear of falling can help health care providers developing a screening program and may be useful in developing multidimensional strategies which focus on improving balance performance, literacy, activities of daily living and health perception.