Frailty prevalence and related factors in the older adult-FrailTURK Project

Abstract

Frailty is one of the geriatric syndromes and has an important relationship with mortality and morbidity. The aim of this study is to present the characteristics, prevalence, and related factors of frailty in older adults in our country. The study included 1126 individuals over 65 years of age from 13 centers. Frailty was evaluated using the Fried Frailty criteria, and patients were grouped as frail, pre-frail, and non-frail. Nutritional status was assessed with Mini Nutritional Test, psychological status with the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale-CES-D, and additional diseases with the Charlson Comorbidity index. Approximately 66.5 % of the participants were between 65 and 74 years of age and 65.7 % were women. Some 39.2 and 43.3 % of the participants were rated as frail and pre-frail, respectively. The multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with frailty. It was observed that age, female gender, low education level, being a housewife, living with the family, being sedentary, presence of an additional disease, using 4 or more drugs/ day, avoiding to go outside, at least one visit to any emergency department within the past year, hospitalization within the past year, non-functional ambulation, and malnutrition increased the risk of frailty (p<0.05). Establishing the factors associated with frailty is highly important for both clinical practice and national economy. This is the first study on this subject in our country and will provide guidance in determining treatment strategies.