3.3. The role of social vulnerability index
The interaction of frailty and age on life satisfaction across the
tertiles of the social vulnerability index was presented in Table 3.
Results show that the interaction between frailty and age on life
satisfaction was only significant in the 2nd and 3rd tertiles of the
social vulnerability index (B = 7.88, p = 0.021; B = 8.31, p = 0.033,
respectively), but not in the 1st tertile of the social vulnerability
index (B =
3.71, p = 0.354). The significant interactions of frailty
and age on life satisfaction in the 2nd and the 3rd tertiles of the
social vulnerability index demonstrated similar patterns to the
previous significant interaction, in other words, the negative
relationship between frailty and life satisfaction was stronger
among the young-old than the old-old. The
findings also suggest
that lower social vulnerability or better social circumstances the
elderly live in might buffer the greater impact of frailty on life
satisfaction for the young-old.