Table 1. Baseline characteristics of the subjects according to the frequency of going outdoors.
| Characteristics | Frequency of going outdoors | p-value for trend* | ||
| once a day or more often |
once per 2-3 days |
once a week or less often |
||
| (n=1,161, 76.3%) | (n=200, 13.1%) | (n=161, 10.6%) | ||
| Sex, Female, n(%) | 694 (59.8) | 122 (61.0) | 99 (61.5) | 0.618 |
| Age, mean(standard deviation) | 73.5 ( 6.0) | 76.8 ( 7.8) | 80.4 ( 7.7) | <0.001 |
| Prevalent chronic medical condition | ||||
| Stroke, n(%) | 73 ( 6.3) | 37 (18.5) | 36 (22.4) | <0.001 |
| Heart Disease, n(%) | 172 (14.8) | 43 (21.5) | 42 (26.1) | <0.001 |
| Diabetes Mellitus, n(%) | 172 (14.8) | 27 (13.5) | 19 (11.8) | 0.279 |
| Arthritis, n(%) | 468 (40.3) | 81 (40.5) | 63 (39.1) | 0.860 |
| Prevalent other chronic condition | ||||
| Visual impairment, n(%) | 117 (10.1) | 51 (25.5) | 42 (26.3) | <0.001 |
| Hearing impairment, n(%) | 175 (15.1) | 52 (26.0) | 58 (36.3) | <0.001 |
| Urinary incontinence, n(%) | 94 ( 8.1) | 41 (20.5) | 63 (39.1) | <0.001 |
| Depressive mood, GDS-sv>5, n(%) | 211 (19.0) | 72 (40.9) | 60 (47.2) | <0.001 |
| Self-rated health, fair or poor, n(%) | 311 (26.9) | 79 (41.1) | 77 (54.2) | <0.001 |
| Use of outpatient clinic in the previous month, yes, n(%) | 933 (80.4) | 154 (77.0) | 130 (81.3) | 0.639 |
| History of hospitalization in the previous year, yes, n(%) | 91 ( 7.8) | 25 (12.5) | 30 (18.6) | <0.001 |
| Physical Function | ||||
| Walking ability over 1km, n(%) | <0.001 | |||
| able, no difficulty | 829 (71.5) | 99 (49.5) | 23 (14.4) | |
| difficult | 283 (24.4) | 50 (25.0) | 46 (28.8) | |
| unable | 48 ( 4.1) | 51 (25.5) | 91 (56.9) | |
| Climbing up stairs, n(%) | <0.001 | |||
| able, no difficulty | 849 (73.2) | 100 (50.0) | 34 (21.3) | |
| difficult | 285 (24.6) | 68 (34.0) | 51 (31.9) | |
| unable | 26 ( 2.2) | 32 (16.0) | 75 (46.9) | |
| Mobility disability, n(%) | 58 ( 5.0) | 56 (28.0) | 99 (61.5) | <0.001 |
| IADL disability, n(%) | 183 (15.8) | 83 (41.5) | 125 (78.1) | <0.001 |
| BADL disability, n(%) | 31 ( 2.7) | 43 (21.8) | 79 (49.4) | <0.001 |
| Cognitive Function | ||||
| MMSE score, median | 26.8 | 25.8 | 23.4 | <0.001 |
| MMSE<20, n(%) | 42 ( 3.6) | 26 (13.3) | 39 (25.5) | <0.001 |
IADL: instrumental activities of daily living; BADL: basic activities of daily living; MMSE: Mini-Mental State Examination; GDS-sv: short-version of geriatric depression scale
*: P-value for Kendall rank correlation coefficient