Concurrent validity of the CIQ for assessing social frailty among community-dwelling older adults

Background/Purpose: The community integration questionnaire (CIQ) is one of the assessment tools used to evaluate the state of social participation. We aimed to determine whether or not the CIQ can estimate social frailty status defined by the social frailty screening index in community-dwelling older adults. Method: A cross-sectional study was performed in community-dwelling older adults aged 65 and above. We investigated the CIQ, and social frailty using the social frailty screening index. To assess the relationship between social frailty and the CIQ, we performed a partial correlation analysis and receiver operating characteristics curves. Results: One hundred and ninety-four participants were enrolled (mean age [standard deviation] was 76.3 [5.5] years). A partial correlation analysis showed that family integration ( r = 0.189) had a low positive correlation with the social frailty score. Social integration ( r = −0.209), productivity ( r = −0.417), the CIQ total score ( r = −0.204), and the combination of social integration and productivity ( r = −0.403) had a low to moderate positive correlation with the social frailty score. The cutoff values for estimating social frailty were 6/7 (AUC: 0.560) for home integration, 6/7 (AUC: 0.633) for social integration, 2/3 (AUC: 0.709) for productivity, 18/19 (AUC: 0.629) for the CIQ total score, and 11/12 (AUC: 0.721) for the combination of social integration and productivity. Conclusion and implications: These results suggest that the CIQ is a useful tool associated with social frailty.