Social Support among Older Persons and Its Association with Smoking: Findings from the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2018.

BACKGROUND: Globally, the average age of the world's population of older people continues to rise and having a good social support network becomes increasingly relevant with the aging populace. Overall, in Malaysia, social support prevalence was low among older persons. This study was conducted to determine the association between social support and smoking status among the older Malaysian population. METHODS: Data were obtained from the National Health and Morbidity (NHMS) 2018 survey on the health of older Malaysian adults and analyzed. This cross-sectional population-based study used a two-stage stratified random sampling design. Sociodemographic characteristics, smoking status, and social support data were collected from respondents aged 60 years and more. A validated Malay language interviewer-administered questionnaire of 11-items, the Duke Social Support Index, was utilized to assess the social support status. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to assess the association of social support and smoking status among the respondents. RESULTS: The prevalence of good social support was significantly higher among the 60-69 years old (73.1%) compared to the ≥80 years old respondents (50%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that respondents aged ≥80 years old were 1.7 times more likely to have poor social support compared to those aged 60-69 years. Respondents with no formal education were 1.93 times more likely to have poor social support compared to respondents who had tertiary education. Respondents with an income of MYR 3000. Former smokers had good social support compared to current smokers (73.6% vs. 78.7%). For current smokers, they had poor social support, which is almost 1.42 times higher than that for non-smokers. CONCLUSION: There was poor social support among older people who were current smokers, had an increased age, had no formal education and had a low income. The findings obtained from this study could assist policymakers to develop relevant strategies at the national level to enhance the social support status among older smokers and aid in their smoking cessation efforts.

Prevalence and factors associated with multimorbidity among older adults in Malaysia: a population-based cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with multimorbidity among community-dwelling older adults in Malaysia. DESIGN: A population-based cross-sectional study. SETTING: 13 states and 3 Federal Territories in Malaysia. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 3966 adults aged 60 years and above were extracted from the nationwide National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2018 data set. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Multimorbidity was defined as co-occurrence of at least two known chronic non-communicable diseases in the same individual. The chronic diseases included hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia and cancer. RESULTS: The prevalence of multimorbidity among Malaysian older adults was 40.6% (95% CI: 37.9 to 43.3). The factors associated with multimorbidity were those aged 70-79 years (adjusted OR (AOR)=1.30; 95% CI=1.04 to 1.63; p=0.019), of Indian (AOR=1.69; 95% CI=1.14 to 2.52; p=0.010) and Bumiputera Sarawak ethnicities (AOR=1.81; 95% CI=1.14 to 2.89; p=0.013), unemployed (AOR=1.53; 95% CI=1.20 to 1.95; p=0.001), with functional limitation from activities of daily livings (AOR=1.66; 95% CI=1.17 to 2.37; p=0.005), physically inactive (AOR=1.28; 95% CI=1.03 to 1.60; p=0.026), being overweight (AOR=1.62; 95% CI=1.11 to 2.36; p=0.014), obese (AOR=1.88; 95% CI=1.27 to 2.77; p=0.002) and with abdominal obesity (AOR=1.52; 95% CI=1.11 to 2.07; p=0.009). CONCLUSION: This study highlighted that multimorbidity was prevalent among older adults in the community. Thus, there is a need for future studies to evaluate preventive strategies to prevent or delay multimorbidity among older adults in order to promote healthy and productive ageing.