Frailty index for hospitalized elderly

Abstract

Introduction: The term frailty was conceptualized as: risk of "breaking down", increased risk of dying, unusual susceptibility to become ill, loss of strength and endurance. Objective: To design an instrument for the diagnosis of frailty in hospitalized elderly. Material and Methods: An observational, analytical, and ambispective study was carried out in the internal medicine services of the "Dr. Carlos J Finlay" and "Dr. Luis Díaz Soto" Hospitals from January 2020 to January 2022. The universe was constituted by 1950 adult patients. The sample consisted of 204 subjects in the estimation group and 199 in the validation group. Each subject underwent a comprehensive geriatric evaluation. The basic steps known for the construction and validation of scales were followed. Results: The instrument constructed was called the Frailty Index for Hospitalized Elderly People. It consisted of the following variables: black skin color, depression, cognitive impairment, suicidal ideation, disability, ischemic heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease. The area under the ROC curve was 0.982 95% CI: (0.967-0.997). The intraclass correlation coefficient was equal to 0.948. Conclusions: The frailty index proposed in this research is a simple clinical instrument, which is balanced, useful, easy to apply and feasible in the hospital care setting.

Keywords

• adulto mayor
• geriatría
• fragilidad
• discapacidad
• comorbilidad