Factors associated with anxiety and fear of falling in older adults: A rapid systematic review of reviews
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are prevalent amongst older adults and negatively impact their quality-of-life and health. Anxiety disorders often go undetected or are misattributed to age-related changes. The aim of this systematic review of reviews, was to synthesize existing evidence on risk factors associated with anxiety in older adults to improve opportunities for early detection and intervention. METHODS: A rapid systematic review of reviews was performed. Studies were included if they were systematic reviews, specific to older adults, reported modifiable or non-modifiable factors associated with increased or decreased frequency of anxiety, and reported on anxiety disorders or symptoms of anxiety (including fear of falling). RESULTS: 27 papers met criteria for inclusion. A total of 77 unique risk and protective factors across demographic, health, environmental, and psychosocial domains were identified. Recurrently identified risk factors for anxiety included female sex, health (e.g., multimorbidity, sensory impairments), physical functions (e.g., impaired balance, history of falls), psychological factors (e.g., fear of falling, depression), social isolation, and sleep disturbances, whereas good physical health and balance confidence were protective. CONCLUSIONS: This review reinforces the multifaceted and complex nature of anxiety in older adults. The results synthesized, highlight risk factors that should prompt detection of older adults for anxiety disorders and provide valuable insight for the development of tailored detection tools that better identify older adults at risk. Future research should address methodological limitations and include more diverse populations to improve opportunities for early detection and intervention in this vulnerable population.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.052 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.013 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".