Emotion regulation strategies and personality traits in a national sample of community older adults: preliminary associations with age-related clinical outcomes

Introduction: Emotion regulation (ER) strategies and personality traits denote clinical psychological features involved in aging adaptation processes. The study’s aim was to investigate novel associations of ER strategies and personality traits with age-related outcomes. Methods: Community older adults aged ≥ 65 years were recruited on a voluntary basis. Subjects with reported psychiatric conditions, with reported severe neurocognitive disorders, with severe functional limitations and/or with sensory deficits were excluded. The use of reappraisal and suppression was explored through the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ); the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) was also used. Frailty (Tilburg Frailty Indicator), screening of sarcopenia risk (SARC-F), and loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale) were the outcome of interest. Results: Preliminary data on a sample of 400 older adults (recruited between Messina, Catania, Brescia and Turin) were analyzed (mean age 73.53 ± 6.8 years; female prevalence of 65.8%). Frail subjects reported significantly lower levels of reappraisal (mean ERQ_reappraisal 28.43; p= 0.011) compared to non-frail (mean ERQ_reappraisal 31.1); frail subjects also reported significantly greater neuroticism (mean TIPI_nevroticism 7.48; p<0.001) and lower openness (mean TIPI_openess 7.58; p<0.001) compared to non-frail (mean 5.99 and mean 9.09, respectively). Subjects at risk of sarcopenia showed significantly lower reappraisal (mean 26.50; p= 0.04) compared to subjects not at- risk (mean 30.36); moreover, at risk subjects reported lower consciousness (mean TIPI_consciousness 10.29; p= 0.013) and lower openness (mean 6.24; p<0.001) compared to those not at risk (mean 11.42, and mean 8.69, respectively). Lonely older adults reported significantly greater suppression (mean ERQ_suppression 16.13; p= 0.002) compared to those not lonely (mean 14.03). Lonely subjects also reported greater neuroticism (mean 7.63; p<0.001) and lower openness (mean 7.96; p= 0.037) compared to those not lonely (mean 6.18, and mean 8.65, respectively). Conclusions: The use of reappraisal and the presence of adaptive personality traits can be associated with physical and functional age-related outcomes and with loneliness in older adults; they might denote novel factors, on which developing tailored interventions for older adults at risk of adverse age-related outcomes.