Frailty syndrome and socioeconomic and health characteristics among older adults

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association of frailty syndrome with socioeconomic and health variables among older adults. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, observational and analytical household research conducted with a sample of 1,609 urban elderly. We used: semi-structured questionnaire, scales (Katz, Lawton and shortened version of Geriatric Depression Scale) and Fragility Phenotype proposed by Fried. Descriptive analysis was performed along with a bivariate and multinomial logistic regression model (p <0.05).Results: The prevalence of pre-frailty condition was 52.0% and the fragility corresponded to 13.6%. Pre-frailty and frailty associated factors were, respectively: age range between 70-79 years and ≥80 years; one to four morbidities and five or more morbidities categories; functional disability for basic and instrumental activities of daily life and depression indicative; whilst lack of a companion or income and female gender were only associated to pre-frailty.Conclusion: The conditions of pre-frailty and frailty levels were elevated with negative effects on the health of the elderly.

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Frailty in Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Indonesia, 2014–2015

“…The finding that frailty "can occur in the absence of multimorbidity" has also been found in a study in Brazil [21]. In line with a number of studies [9,13,16,17,21], this study found an association between functional disability and frailty. This shows that our study frailty has overlap with function disability but not comorbidity.…”

“…In consistence with previous studies [9,[12][13][14][15], this study found that older age, being unmarried, separated, divorced or widowed, and in the bivariate analysis that poorer economic status and lower education were associated with frailty. Frailty is associated with aging by accumulating deficiencies in several physiological systems [21].…”

“…Some research indicates poor cognition and frailty share "underlying biological causal explanatory factors" [16]. A number of previous studies [9,13,14,16,21] found an association between higher comorbidity or number of chronic conditions and frailty, while this study did not find any significant association. The finding that frailty "can occur in the absence of multimorbidity" has also been found in a study in Brazil [21].…”

“…Sociodemographic risk factors for frailty include, older age [9,[12][13][14], female sex [9], lower income [14,15], lower education [9,15], and low social support or poor social networks [12,14]. Health variable risk factors for frailty, may include, poor health status [14,16], low quality of life or low life satisfaction [17,18], poor mental health (depression, insomnia) [19,20], lower cognitive functioning [11,16], higher comorbidity or number of chronic conditions [9,13,14,16,21], and functional disability [9,13,16,17,21]. In addition, behavioral risk factors include, lower fruit and vegetable consumption [22], tobacco use [23], polypharmacy [14,23], and falls [9,14,17].…”

Potentially inappropriate medication use and frailty phenotype among community‐dwelling older adults: A population‐based study

“…Another explanatory variable was PIM. Initially, regular medica- Frailty syndrome-the outcome variable-was assessed considering frailty phenotype components (unintentional weight loss, decreased muscle strength, walking slowness, low physical activity levels and self-reported exhaustion and/or fatigue) (Fried et al, 2001), in agreement with previous studies (Pegorari & Tavares, 2014;Tavares, Corrêa, Dias, Ferreira, & Pegorari, 2017;Tavares et al, 2018). Based on this evaluation, subjects with three or more impairments were classified as frail, those with one or two impairments were classified as prefrail, and those with no impairments of frailty components were considered nonfrail (Fried et al, 2001).…”