Background:
Increasing age of HIV-1 infected population brought about the risk of
frailty as comorbidity, whose prevalence is higher in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Indonesia as an LMIC also bears a major burden of HIV-1 epidemic with a similarly aging population,
but the prevalence of frailty and its predictors are unknown.
Objectives:
To identify the prevalence of frailty and analyze its associated factors, among HIV-1 infected
adults under antiretroviral therapy in Indonesia.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted among HIV-infected individuals with inclusion
criteria of age ≥30 years old and underwent ART for at least 6 months. The main assessment was
done using Fried’s frailty phenotype score, which categorizes subjects into non-frail, pre-frail, or
frail. Factors associated with frailty were characterized and multiple logistic regression analysis was
performed.
Results:
A total of 164 subjects were recruited; male subjects were 118 (72%), the median age was
40.5 years old, and the median CD4 nadir was 53 cells/μl. Frailty was identified among 90 (54.9%)
subjects with 84 (51.2%) identified as pre-frail and 6 (3.7%) as frail, with dominant frailty phenotype
was weakness in grip strength. The multivariate model showed that depression was the only
factor significantly correlated with pre-frailty and frailty (OR 2.14; 95% CI 1.04-4.43, p=0.036).
Conclusion:
Frailty is a common occurrence among HIV-infected patients under ART, with depression
as an independent predictive factor.