The Mediating Role of Proxy Respondents on the Relationship between Cognitive Function and Self-Rated Health

This study investigates the mediating effect of proxy status on the relationship between cognitive impairment and subjectively-rated health.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Respondents from the 2018 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (N=17,146) were included, and the Baron and Kenny method assessed potential mediating role of having a proxy on subjectively-rated health. Subjectively-rated health and proxy status were dichotomously coded, and relationships between cognitive impairment, proxy status, and subjectively-rated health were assessed using logistic regression.RESULTS: Findings indicate that cognitive impairment is inversely associated with subjectively-rated health, and it is directly associated with having a proxy. They also indicate that having a proxy is inversely related with subjectively-rated health. When including proxy status and cognitive impairment in the same model, cognitive impairment no longer predicted subjectively-rated health. This indicates that proxy status perfectly mediated the relationship between cognitive impairment and subjectively-rated health.DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Measuring the experiences of people with cognitive impairment is challenging in survey research due to the limiting features of cognitive impairment. While having a proxy respondent helps address attrition-related measurement challenges in survey research, findings indicate that proxies report worse subjectively-rated health for people with cognitive impairment compared to ...

Source: The Gerontologist - December 16, 2023 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Andrew G Alberth Edward Alan Miller Nina M Silverstein Jeffrey Stokes Yan-Jhu Su Source Type: research