A Cross-sectional Survey of Prevalence and Related Factors for Frail Status Among Middle-aged and Elderly People in Chinese Communities

Abstract

Background With the aggravation of social competition and work burden pressure, the health condition of the middle-aged and above population in China has declined significantly. Frailty can be used as a criterion for evaluating a person's unhealthy state. However, there is limited data on the prevalence and related factors of frail status in Chinese middle-aged and older people.The objective of this study was to explore the correlation between frail status, chronic diseases, abnormal physical examination indicators among middle-aged and older populations. Methods Participants were 9,985 community-dwelling adults over the age of 40 years living in China. Data were from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey which was a nationally representative sample and frailty phenotype was based on Fried frailty criteria. We analyzed the demographics of participants and multivariate-adjusted related factors for frail and pre-frail population. Results The overall prevalence of frailty and pre-frailty was 3.1% (95% CI: 2.8, 3.5) and 53.66% (95% CI: 52.7, 54.6) among the general Chinese population aged 40 years or older. Hypertension (OR: 1.8, 95% CI: 1.3, 2.593), pain (OR: 1.8, 95% CI: 1.3, 2.5), and hip fracture (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.1, 4.4) were associated with prevalent frailty. Relative factors for frailty also included increased cystatin C (OR: 4.5, 95% CI: 3.0, 6.7) and glycated hemoglobin (OR: 1.2, 95% CI: 1.1, 1.4), as well as decreased peak expiratory flow (OR: 0.993, 95% CI: 0.991, 0.994). Conclusions Fried-defined frailty and pre-frailty are highly prevalent in the Chinese population over 40 years older. Hypertension, pain, hip fracture, low education, and underweight are major related factors for frailty. The decrease in peak expiratory flow and the increase in cystatin C and glycated hemoglobin are good indicators for detecting frailty. Thus, frailty is an increasingly common condition and will become a major important health issue for people over middle age.