Introduction: The extension of life expectancy has led to the expansion of comorbidities and declination of functional ability, which have consequences on mental, physical and social well-being of the elderly. Hence, comprehensive understanding factors influencing instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) will guide future health strategies to improve the quality of life for the elderly.

Objective: To access the prevalence of IADL limitation and its related factors among community-dwelling elderly in Hue city.

Method: We carried out a cross-sectional study on 427 elderly aged 60 or older in Hue city from April 2020 to March 2021. The Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale was used to access the limitation of IADL. Using logistics regression analysis to investigate the potential determinants of IADL limitation in older adults.

Result: The prevalence of IADL limitation among community-dwelling elderly were 51.0% and 40.7% for female and male, respectively. Female participants often found difficulty in traveling (41.2%), going shopping (37.6%) and food preparing (33.5%) and problems related to going shopping (38.5%) and traveling (18.1%) were most observed in male. Logistics regression analysis revealed that advanced age (aOR = 8.57, 95% CI: 4.20 – 17.48), illiteracy (aOR = 5.54, 95% CI: 1.79 – 17.20), physical inactivity (aOR = 2.67, 95% CI: 1.67 – 4.56), walking aid usage (aOR = 27.06, 95% CI: 3.15 – 232.89) and visual impairment (aOR = 2.31, 95% CI: 1.36 – 3.93) as being significantly associated with IADL limitation.

Conclusion: The overall prevalence of the community-dwelling elderly who reported limitation in performing IADL was considerably high. Healthcare programs should focus on early health status screening and developing healthy lifestyle campaigns for the elderly.