A New Measure of Mobility-Related Behavioral Flexibility and Routines in Old Age

Abstract

Abstract. Although daily out-of-home mobility is crucial for well-being in later life, the psychological determinants thereof are not yet fully understood. This study describes attitudes toward daily out-of-home mobility from a person-environment interaction perspective and develops an instrument to measure mobility-related behavioral flexibility and routines in old age. Data were drawn from 265 older adults (aged 65–99). An examination of the factorial structure using exploratory factor analysis revealed three main mobility-related factors: behavioral flexibility with regard to environmental challenges, behavioral flexibility with regard to personal challenges, and a preference for routines. The instrument demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and factorial validity. The study contributes toward a better understanding of the motivational aspects of daily out-of-home mobility in later life.

Mobility-Related Behavioral Flexibility and Routines

“…These findings provide new insight into the content-related meaning of this dimension and raise the question of whether ROU directly opposes the flexibility constructs. However, given only the moderate correlation between the flexibility dimensions and ROU, we believe ROU covers further distinct aspects that may be relevant in old age (Penger & Oswald, 2017). For clarification purposes, further analyses are needed on preferences for routines in the context of outdoor mobility in later life.…”

“…The present work was based on the following theoretical assumptions: (1) The MBFR instrument was expected to show sufficient factorial validity and reliability. More precisely, we expected being able to empirically confirm the three-factorial structure of the MBFR instrument which resulted from explorative analyses by Penger and Oswald (2017). (2) As an indication of sufficient convergent validity, the MBFR dimensions were presumed to be linked to general coping styles and mobility-specific attitudes commonly used in the context of active and successful aging, which reflect motivation or perceived competencies related to outdoor mobility (Haustein, 2012; Oswald et al, 2005).…”

“…In other words, we focus on the assessment of subjective beliefs for coping with mobility-related challenges as well as mobility-related habitual preferences when outside the home. We refer to a standardized measurement tool, proposed by Penger and Oswald (2017), that assesses mobility-related behavioral flexibility and preferences for routines (MBFR) in old age. Until now, investigations into the newly developed MBFR questionnaire has only been exploratory.…”

Measuring Achievement, Affiliation, and Power Motives in Mobility Situations: Development of the Multi-Motive Grid Mobility

“…Early work investigating mobility concentrated on the environment and the person-environment fit (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973). More recent studies have also focused particularly on the effects of environmental aspects on mobility (Clarke et al, 2008;Nagel et al, 2008;Penger and Oswald, 2017;Stafford and Baldwin, 2018;Ottoni et al, 2021) and on the question, which transportation forms are essential to maintain older individual's access to important services, people, and activities (Oxley and Whelan, 2008;Dickerson et al, 2019).…”

Mobility enhancement among older adults 75 + in rural areas: Study protocol of the MOBILE randomized controlled trial

“…This applies especially when used techniques are based on well-founded psychological theories such as coping with loss or onset of disability as well as self-regulatory strategies to change behaviour [ 12 , 13 ]. There is little evidence about the use of behaviour change techniques to maintain or modify out-of-home mobility in interventions to prevent frailty and one promising but solemnly used technique may be the formation of routines/habits [ 14 , 15 ]. In addition results of a recent intervention study in Finland suggest that more evidence is needed on the short- and long-term effects of face-to-face counselling interventions addressing participation in mobility-related activities [ 16 ].…”