Assessment of Frailty in the Elderly

Gönül Düzgün; Sema Üstündağ; Ayfer Karadakovan

doi:10.5152/FNJN.2021.414736

Assessment of Frailty in the Elderly

Florence Nightingale J Nurs. 2021 Feb 1;29(1):2-8. doi: 10.5152/FNJN.2021.414736. eCollection 2021 Feb.

Authors

Gönül Düzgün¹, Sema Üstündağ², Ayfer Karadakovan³

Affiliations

¹ Department of First and Emergency Aid, İzmir Tınaztepe University Vocational School of Health Services, İzmir, Turkey.
² Department of Internal Medicine Nursing, Kutahya Health Sciences University Faculty of Health Sciences, Kütahya, Turkey.
³ Department of Internal Medicine Nursing, Ege University Faculty of Nursing, İzmir, Turkey.

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate frailty in older individuals and to identify factors related to frailty.

Method: The descriptive, and cross-sectional study was conducted with 111 elderly patients who received inpatient treatment in a university hospital between January and September 2016. Ethics committee approval, institutional consent, and informed patient consent were obtained for the study. Along with the Edmonton Frail Scale, a data form was used to collect data about the patient's sociodemographics, disease status, and fall incidents. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews.

Results: The prevalence of severe frailty was 19.8%. Significant relationships were found between frailty and advanced age, low education, low income, continuous use of medicines, and a history of falls within the last year.

Conclusion: Elderly individuals included in the study were categorized as "vulnerable" (Edmonton Frail Scale score of 6.84±3.83) and were at the borderline for "mild frailty" (Edmonton Frail Scale score of 7-8). The factors associated with frailty were advanced age, low education, and income level, continuous use of medicines, and the history of falls within the last year.

Keywords: Frailty; elderly; nursing.