Prevalence and factors associated with frailty among community-dwelling older people in rural Thanjavur district of South India: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

ObjectiveThere is sparse data on the prevalence of frailty from rural parts of India. Our aim was to estimate prevalence of frailty among community-dwelling older people in rural South Indian population and explore socio-demographic factors associated with frailty. We further explored the associations between frailty with fear of falling and falls.DesignCommunity based cross-sectional study.SettingFour villages in Thanjavur district of Southern India.ParticipantsRandom sample of adults aged 60 years and above from four villages.MethodsWe sampled community-dwelling older adults from the electoral list of four villages using stratified random sampling. We report prevalence of frailty as defined by physical definition (Fried’s Phenotype), accumulation of deficits (Frailty Index) and multi-domain definition (Tilburg Frailty Indicator). We report proportion of agreement of frailty status between the frailty tools. We used logistic regressions with robust SEs to examine the associations between socio-demographic determinants with frailty and the association between frailty with fear of falling and falls.ResultsAmong the 408 participants, the weighted (non-response and poststratification for sex) prevalence and 95% CI of frailty was 28% (18.9 to 28.1) for physical definition, 59% (53.9 to 64.3) for accumulation of deficits and 63% (57.4 to 67.6) for multi-domain definition. Frailty Index and Tilburg Frailty Indicator had good agreement (80%). Age, female, lower education, lower socioeconomic status, minimum physical activity in routine work were independently associated with frailty irrespective of the frailty definitions. Frail elderly had higher odds of falls as well as fear of falling compared with non-frail, irrespective of the definitions.ConclusionPrevalence of frailty among older people in rural Thanjavur district of South India was high compared with low-income and middle-income countries. Understanding the modifiable determinants of frailty can provide a valuable reference for future prevention and intervention.

Prevalence and Potential Predictors of Frailty among Community-Dwelling Older Persons in Northern Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The prevalence in less developed countries such as Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia and India were 15.2%, 21.7%, 25.2% and 28.0%, respectively [15][16][17][18], which were higher than the present study. The present study also identified a very similar prevalence rate to previously reported in two provinces of northern Thailand, which was a 15.0% frailty prevalence [10].…”

“…In more developed countries, these factors include age, black race, female gender, cardiovascular disease, number of comorbidities, functional incapacity, poor self-rated health, depressive symptoms, body mass index, smoking, low schooling level, low income, poor cognitive function and alcohol consumption [2,[11][12][13][14]. In less developed countries, these factors include age, female gender, lower education, longest-held occupation, lower socioeconomic status, low physical activity, comorbidities, functional status and nutritional status [15][16][17][18]. In summary, factors associated with geriatric frailty fall into the following domains: socio-demographic, physical, psychological, functional, and lifestyle.…”

Frailty Indexed Classification of Bangladeshi Older Adults’ Physio-psychosocial Health and Associated Risk Factors - A Cross-sectional Survey Study

“…We found that most people in old age groups were susceptible to frailty, and at higher risk of medical conditions than pre-elderly age group, which is consistent with previous studies [1,4,27,43,44]. Lanka is consistent with our study ndings [14,18,20,45].…”

“…In this study, frailty indices consider various aspects of general health assessment including self-reported medical history, biomarkers and performance in daily activities. Gender was identi ed as a risk factor for predicting the older adults' frailty [14,27]. This study's ndings agree on previous studies in reporting that female older adults in low-income countries, South Asia in particular, are generally reluctant about their health complexities and they do not take proper initiatives for health check-ups [27,[54][55][56].…”

“…Studies are limited on older adult's frailty in South Asia, and the available studies suggest contextual investigation of their frailty and health conditions [4,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Few studies on ageing conducted in Bangladesh reported the importance of preventive and primary healthcare programs for the older adults [7,9,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”