Background: frailty is an especially problematic expression of population ageing. International guidelines recommend routine identification of frailty to provide evidence-based treatment, but currently available tools require additional resource.Objectives: to develop and validate an electronic frailty index (eFI) using routinely available primary care electronic health record data.Study design and setting: retrospective cohort study. Development and internal validation cohorts were established using a randomly split sample of the ResearchOne primary care database. External validation cohort established using THIN database.Participants: patients aged 65–95, registered with a ResearchOne or THIN practice on 14 October 2008.Predictors: we constructed the eFI using the cumulative deficit frailty model as our theoretical framework. The eFI score is calculated by the presence or absence of individual deficits as a proportion of the total possible. Categories of fit, mild, moderate and severe frailty were defined using population quartiles.Outcomes: outcomes were 1-, 3- and 5-year mortality, hospitalisation and nursing home admission.Statistical analysis: hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated using bivariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Discrimination was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Calibration was assessed using pseudo-R2 estimates.Results: we include data from a total of 931,541 patients. The eFI incorporates 36 deficits constructed using 2,171 CTV3 codes. One-year adjusted HR for mortality was 1.92 (95% CI 1.81–2.04) for mild frailty, 3.10 (95% CI 2.91–3.31) for moderate frailty and 4.52 (95% CI 4.16–4.91) for severe frailty. Corresponding estimates for hospitalisation were 1.93 (95% CI 1.86–2.01), 3.04 (95% CI 2.90–3.19) and 4.73 (95% CI 4.43–5.06) and for nursing home admission were 1.89 (95% CI 1.63–2.15), 3.19 (95% CI 2.73–3.73) and 4.76 (95% CI 3.92–5.77), with good to moderate discrimination but low calibration estimates.Conclusions: the eFI uses routine data to identify older people with mild, moderate and severe frailty, with robust predictive validity for outcomes of mortality, hospitalisation and nursing home admission. Routine implementation of the eFI could enable delivery of evidence-based interventions to improve outcomes for this vulnerable group.

background Despite simpler regimens than vitamin K antagonists (VKas) for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation (aF), adherence (taking drugs as prescribed) and persistence (continuation of drugs) to direct oral anticoagulants are suboptimal, yet understudied in electronic health records (ehrs). Objective We investigated (1) time trends at individual and system levels, and (2) the risk factors for and associations between adherence and persistence. Methods in UK primary care ehr (The health information network 2011-2016), we investigated adherence and persistence at 1 year for oral anticoagulants (Oacs) in adults with incident aF. Baseline characteristics were analysed by Oac and adherence/persistence status. risk factors for nonadherence and non-persistence were assessed using cox and logistic regression. Patterns of adherence and persistence were analysed. results among 36 652 individuals with incident aF, cardiovascular comorbidities (median cha 2 Ds 2 Vasc[congestive heart failure, hypertension, age≥75 years, Diabetes mellitus, stroke, Vascular disease, age 65-74 years, sex category] 3) and polypharmacy (median number of drugs 6) were common. adherence was 55.2% (95% ci 54.6 to 55.7), 51.2% (95% ci 50.6 to 51.8), 66.5% (95% ci 63.7 to 69.2), 63.1% (95% ci 61.8 to 64.4) and 64.7% (95% ci 63.2 to 66.1) for all Oacs, VKa, dabigatran, rivaroxaban and apixaban.One-year persistence was 65.9% (95% ci 65.4 to 66.5), 63.4% (95% ci 62.8 to 64.0), 61.4% (95% ci 58.3 to 64.2), 72.3% (95% ci 70.9 to 73.7) and 78.7% (95% ci 77.1 to 80.1) for all Oacs, VKa, dabigatran, rivaroxaban and apixaban. risk of non-adherence and non-persistence increased over time at individual and system levels. increasing comorbidity was associated with reduced risk of non-adherence and non-persistence across all Oacs. Overall rates of 'primary non-adherence' (stopping after first prescription), 'non-adherent nonpersistence' and 'persistent adherence' were 3.5%, 26.5% and 40.2%, differing across Oacs. Conclusions adherence and persistence to Oacs are low at 1 year with heterogeneity across drugs and over time at individual and system levels. Better understanding of contributory factors will inform interventions to improve adherence and persistence across Oacs in individuals and populations.on July 10, 2020 by guest. Protected by copyright.

From 2000 to 2016, the prevalence of recorded AF has increased in all age groups and both sexes. Anticoagulant treatment of eligible patients with AF has more than doubled, with marked improvements since 2011, alongside a reduction in the use of anticoagulants in ineligible patients with AF.

Background. Heart failure is a common long term condition affecting around 900 000 people in the UK and patients commonly present to primary care. The prognosis of patients with a code of heart failure in their primary care record is unknown.Objective. The study sought to determine the overall survival rates for patients with heart failure in a primary care population from the time of diagnosis.Methods. Survival analysis was carried out using UK primary care records from The Health Improvement Network (THIN) between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2012. Patients age 45 or over with a first diagnostic label of heart failure were matched by age, sex and practice to people without heart failure. Outcome was death in the heart failure and no heart failure cohorts. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to compare survival. Age-specific survival rates at 1, 5 and 10 years were determined for men and women with heart failure. Survival rates by year of diagnosis and case definition were also calculated.Results. During the study period, 54313 patients had a first diagnostic code of heart failure. Overall survival rates for the heart failure group were 81.3% (95%CI 80.9–81.6), 51.5% (95%CI 51.0–52.0) and 29.5% (95%CI 28.9–30.2) at 1, 5 and 10 years respectively and did not change over time.Conclusions. In a primary care population, the survival of patients diagnosed with heart failure did not improved over time. Further research is needed to explain these trends and to find strategies to improve outlook.

BackgroundClustered randomised controlled trials (CRCTs) are increasingly common in primary care. Outcomes within the same cluster tend to be correlated with one another. In sample size calculations, estimates of the intra-cluster correlation coefficient (ICC) are needed to allow for this nonindependence. In studies with observations over more than one time period, estimates of the inter-period correlation (IPC) and the within-period correlation (WPC) are also needed.MethodsThis is a retrospective cross-sectional study of all patients aged 18 or over with a diagnosis of type-2 diabetes, from The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database, between 1 October 2007 and 31 March 2010. We report estimates of the ICC, IPC, and WPC for typical outcomes using unadjusted and adjusted generalised linear mixed models with cluster and cluster by period random effects. For binary outcomes we report on the proportions scale, which is the appropriate scale for trial design. Estimated ICCs were compared to those reported from a systematic search of CRCTs undertaken in primary care in the UK in type-2 diabetes.ResultsData from 430 general practices, with a median [IQR] number of diabetics per practice of 241 [150–351], were analysed. The ICC for HbA1c was 0.032 (95 % CI 0.026–0.038). For a two-period (each of 12 months) design, the WPC for HbA1c was 0.035 (95 % CI 0.030–0.040) and the IPC was 0.019 (95 % CI 0.014–0.026). The difference between the WPC and the IPC indicates a decay of correlation over time. Following dichotomisation at 7.5 %, the ICC for HbA1c was 0.026 (95 % CI 0.022–0.030). ICCs for other clinical measurements and clinical outcomes are presented. A systematic search of ICCs used in the design of CRCTs involving type-2 diabetes with HbA1c (undichotomised) as the outcome found that published trials tended to use more conservative ICC values (median 0.047, IQR 0.047–0.050) than those reported here.ConclusionsThese estimates of ICCs, IPCs, and WPCs for a variety of outcomes commonly used in diabetes trials can be useful for the design of CRCTs. In studies with observations taken at different time-points, the correlation of observations may decay over time, as reflected in lower values for the IPC than for the ICC. The IPC and WPC estimates are the first reported for UK primary care data.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13063-016-1532-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.