ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
This article is part of the Research TopicUnveiling the Mental Health Impact of Physical Decline in Older Adults: A Holistic ApproachView all 18 articles
Demoralization profiles and their association with active aging in Chinese older adults with disabilities: a latent profile analysis
Provisionally accepted
- Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: To identify latent profiles of demoralization among older adults with disabilities, analyze their influencing factors, and examine their associations with active aging. Methods: From February to July 2025, a convenience sample of 411 older adults with disabilities was recruited from a tertiary hospital in Anhui Province, China. Data were collected using a general information questionnaire, the Chinese version of the Demoralization Scale, and the Active Aging Scale. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was performed based on demoralization subscale scores. Univariate and multivariate analyses were employed to investigate the influencing factors, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to compare differences in active aging levels across the profiles. Results: The prevalence of demoralization syndrome was 49.1%. LPA identified three distinct profiles: the Well-Adapted Group (53.3%), the Disheartened-Helpless Group (23.8%), and the Fully Demoralized Group (22.9%). The Kruskal-Wallis H test revealed significant differences among the profiles (P < 0.001), indicating a negative correlation between active aging levels and demoralization severity. The Fully Demoralized Group scored significantly lower on active aging than the other two groups. Conclusions: Nearly half of the older adults with disabilities experienced demoralization, with heterogeneous subgroups identified. The active aging status of demoralized subgroups requires urgent attention. These findings suggest the need for targeted interventions tailored to the characteristics of each profile to improve mental health and promote active aging in this population.
Keywords: Demoralization syndrome, Older adults with disabilities, Active aging, latent profile analysis, Psychological adaptation
Received: 29 Sep 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Qi, Zhang, Zhang, Wang, Mao, Wang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Annuo Liu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.