<p>Turkish version of the Tilburg Frailty Indicator</p>

Abstract

Background: Recently frailty has drawn significant interest as an important predictor of several clinically relevant outcomes. There is no widely accepted instrument for the assessment of frailty and most of the current ones evaluate only physical features. The Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) is a valid and reliable instrument which enables multidimensional assessment of frailty. We aimed to adapt and evaluate the Turkish version of the TFI. Methods: We translated and culturally adapted the English version of the TFI into Turkish using standard guidelines. We enrolled consecutive patients who were 70 years old or older and were admitted to our outpatient geriatrics clinic. We used Cronbach's alpha values to evaluate the internal consistency and also assessed inter-observer and test-retest variability using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients of the instrument ranged from 0.65 to 0.72 and item-total correlation ranged between-0.05 and 0.57. There was a good agreement between two assessments (ICC=0.99) and between two observers (ICC=0.99). Conclusion: We have shown the reliability of the Turkish version of the TFI as a tool to evaluate frailty in a multidimensional manner among the Turkish outpatient population.

Assessing Frailty with the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI): A Review of Reliability and Validity

“…Using the original TFI cut-off point of 5, 1 prevalence figures concerning the general population of community-dwelling older people ranged from 12.4% to 47.1% in samples of Chinese and Dutch individuals. 1 , 13 Specifically, prevalence was higher among Turkish people admitted to a geriatrics outpatient clinic (63.6%), 15 residents of assisted living facilities (76.5%) 39 and among physical pre-frail and frail community-dwelling older people (64.8%). 43 In the latter group, the frailty status of the participants was first assessed by the Phenotype of Frailty.…”

“…The two other types of reliability, inter-rater and parallel forms, have only been examined to a limited extent. 13,15,46 The validity of the TFI has been established in 24 studies. In many studies focusing on criterion validity (concurrent and predictive), adverse outcomes of interest were disability, increased health-care utilization, lower quality of life and mortality.…”

“…Specifically, prevalence was higher among Turkish people admitted to a geriatrics outpatient clinic (63.6%), 15 residents of assisted living facilities (76.5%) 39 and among physical pre-frail and frail community-dwelling older people (64.8%). 43 In the latter group, the frailty status of the participants was first assessed by the Phenotype of Frailty.…”

“…Six studies examined the internal consistency reliability of the TFI using corrected item-total correlations. 9,12,15,36,50,52 Test-retest reliability was observed in nine studies, using Pearson correlations, 1,7,10 Kappa, 7,10,14,50 simple agreement, 7,10,14 and ICC 12,13,15,52 (see Table 3). Pearson correlations, with regard to frailty total were 0.88, 7 0.90, 1 and 0.91, 10 using a period less than 3 weeks.…”

“… 1 Subsequently, the TFI was translated into several languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, 7 Danish, 8 Italian, 9 Portuguese, 10 Polish, 11 German, 12 Chinese, 13 Spanish, 14 and Turkish. 15 Until now, two systematic reviews and one narrative review have been published, indicating that the TFI is very suitable for assessing frailty among community-dwelling older people. 5 , 16 , 17 According to Pialoux et al, both the TFI 1 and the SHARE Frailty Index 18 are potentially suitable for screening frailty in older people in primary care settings.…”