Acta Scientific Medical Sciences (ASMS)(ISSN: 2582-0931)

Research Article Volume 5 Issue 12

The Prevalence of Frailty and its Associated Risk Factors Among the Saudi Elderly Population in Primary Health Care in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abdulmalik Almufarrih*, Badr Almutairi, Nayef Alblowi, Saeed Asiri, Ahmad Alnashri, Saad Albattal, Medhat Maher and Mostafa Kofi

Department of Family and Community Medicine, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

*Corresponding Author: Abdulmalik Almufarrih, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Received: November 03, 2021; Published: November 26, 2021

Abstract

Background: Frailty is a geriatric clinical syndrome characterized by increased vulnerability to a wide range of negative outcomes such as falls, disability, institutionalization, and mortality. Frailty is becoming a major public health issue as the population of the elderly continues to grow for developing future planning, intervention, and treatment for the targeted groups. As a result, the purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of frailty in older adults and to identify risk factors for frailty, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out in 2021 convenient sample of 228 from the elderly patients aged 60-year-old or above who are attending Al-Wazart health center of Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A data collection form that consists of two parts, the first part assessed the patient demographics, comorbidities, and medications, while the second part consisted of the FRAIL scale and the Mini-cog test.

Result: A total of 228 Saudi elderly patients participated in the current study, the male gender represented 51.8% of the studied sample, and 42.1% were in the age group of 60-65 years old. The largest percentage (43.4%) of the participants were in the BMI group of 25-29.9 kg/m2, the vast majority (97.4%) of them were nonsmokers, and living with their families (99.1%). Almost one-third of the participants have a caregiver at 32.0%, and 46.1% were illiterate. It was found that the prevalence of frailty was 25.4% while 24.6% were prefrail. There was a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) between the robust, frail, and prefrail subjects in terms of age, educational level, and presence of a caregiver.

Conclusion: The prevalence of frailty syndrome was 25.4%, while 24.6% were prefrail. Possible cognitive impairment was reported in 18.4%. Old age, dyslipidemia, heart failure, hypothyroidism, and polypharmacy, were the significant risk factors for frailty. As the older adults population size in Saudi Arabia is growing with greater longevity, the impact of frailty syndrome could not be ignored and neglected. Further study is needed to validate our findings in other large-scale population of older adults.

Keywords: Frailty; Elderly; Geriatric; Saudi Arabia

References

  1. Fried LP., et al. “Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype”. The Journals of Gerontology, Series A3 (2001): M146-M157.
  2. De Vries NM., et al. “Outcome instruments to measure frailty: a systematic review”. Ageing Research Reviews1 (2011): 104-114.
  3. Martin FC and Brighton P. “Frailty: Different tools for different purposes?” Age Ageing2 (2008): 129-131.
  4. Mohd Hamidin FA., et al. “Prevalence of frailty syndrome and its associated factors among community-dwelling elderly in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia”. SAGE Open Medical Case Report 6 (2018).
  5. Clegg A., et al. “Frailty in elderly people”. Lancet9868 (2013): 752-762.
  6. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs PD. World Population Ageing 2017. United Nations (2017): 124.
  7. Collard RM., et al. “Prevalence of frailty in community-dwelling older persons: a systematic review”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 8 (2012): 1487-1492.
  8. Purser JL., et al. “Identifying frailty in hospitalized older adults with significant coronary artery disease”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 11 (2006): 1674-1681.
  9. Ekerstad N., et al. “Frailty is independently associated with short-term outcomes for elderly patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction”. Circulation22 (2011): 2397-2404.
  10. Andela RM., et al. “Prevalence of frailty on clinical wards: description and implications”. The International Journal of Nursing Practice1(2010): 14-19.
  11. Chen CY., et al. “The prevalence of subjective frailty and factors associated with frailty in Taiwan”. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 50 (2010): S43-S47.
  12. Avila Funes JA., et al. “Cognitive impairment improves the predictive validity of the phenotype of frailty for adverse health outcomes: the threecity study”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society3 (2009): 453-461.
  13. Syddall H., et al. “Prevalence and correlates of frailty among community-dwelling older men and women: findings from the Hertfordshire Cohort Study”. Age Ageing2 (2009): 197-203.
  14. Fried LP., et al. “Untangling the concepts of disability, frailty, and comorbidity: implications for improved targeting and care”. The Journals of Gerontology, Series A 59.3 (2004): M255- M263.
  15. Bales CW and Ritchie CS. “Sarcopenia, weight loss, and nutritional frailty in the elderly”. Annual Review of Nutrition1 (2002): 309-323.
  16. Gleason L., et al. “FRAIL Questionnaire Screening Tool and Short-Term Outcomes in Geriatric Fracture Patients”. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association12 (2017): 1082-1086.
  17. Borson S., et al. “The mini-cog: a cognitive “vital signs” measure for dementia screening in multi-lingual elderly”. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry11 (2000): 1021-1027.
  18. Alqahtani BA and Nasser TA. “Assessment of frailty in Saudi community-dwelling older adults: validation of measurements”. Annals of Saudi Medicine3 (2019): 197-204.
  19. Albanna M., et al. “Validation and cultural adaptation of the Arabic versions of the Mini-Mental Status Examination - 2 and Mini-Cog test”. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 13 (2017): 793-801.
  20. Collard RM., et al. “Prevalence of frailty in community-dwelling older persons: a systematic review”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society8 (2012): 1487-1492.
  21. Mohd Hamidin FA., et al. “Prevalence of frailty syndrome and its associated factors among community-dwelling elderly in East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia”. SAGE Open Medical Case Reports 6 (2018).
  22. Doba N., et al. “A pilot trial to predict frailty syndrome: the Japanese Health Research Volunteer Study”. Experimental Gerontology8 (2012): 638-643.
  23. Ensrud KE., et al. “Comparison of 2 frailty indexes for prediction of falls, disability, fractures, and death in older women”. Archives of internal medicine4 (2008): 382-389.
  24. Avila Funes JA., et al. “Cognitive impairment improves the predictive validity of the phenotype of frailty for adverse health outcomes: the threecity study”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society3 (2009): 453-461.
  25. Song X., et al. “Prevalence and 10-year outcomes of frailty in older adults in relation to deficit accumulation”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society4 (2010): 681-687.
  26. Akın S., et al. “The prevalence of frailty and related factors in community-dwelling Turkish elderly according to modified Fried Frailty Index and FRAIL scales”. Aging clinical and experimental research5 (2015): 703-709.
  27. Alessandro Battaggia., et al. “The burden of frailty in older people visiting GPs in Veneto and Sicily, Italy”. Journal of Drug Assessment1 (2019): 87-96.
  28. Albala C., et al. “Frequency of frailty and its association with cognitive status and survival in older Chileans”. Clinical Interventions in Aging 12(2017): 995-1001.
  29. Morley JE., et al. “Frailty consensus: a call to action”. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 14 (2013): 392-397.
  30. Heppenstall CP., et al. “Frailty: dominos or deliberation?” The New Zealand Medical Journal1299 (2009): 42-53.
  31. De Mello MT., et al. “Relationship between physical activity and depression and anxiety symptoms: a population study”. The Journal of Affective Disorders1-3 (2013): 241–246.
  32. Fried LP., et al. “Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype”. The Journals of Gerontology, Series A3 (2001): M146-M157.
  33. Hubbard RE., et al. “Frailty, body mass index, and abdominal obesity in older people”. The Journals of Gerontology, Series A4 (2009): 377-381.
  34. Blaum CS., et al. “The association between obesity and the frailty syndrome in older women: the Women’s Health and Aging Studies”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society6 (2005): 927-934.
  35. Cesari M., et al. “Frailty syndrome and skeletal muscle: results from the Invecchiare in Chianti study”. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition5 (2006): 1142-1148.
  36. Flicker L., et al. “Body mass index and survival in men and women aged 70 to 75”. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society2 (2010): 234-241.
  37. Eyigor S Frailty., et al. “Prevalence and related factors in the older adult-frail TURK project”. Age 37.3 (2015): 9791.
  38. Liang YD., et al. “Identification of Frailty and Its Risk Factors in Elderly Hospitalized Patients from Different Wards: A Cross-Sectional Study in China”. Clinical Interventions in Aging 14 (2019): 2249-2259.
  39. Salinas Rodríguez A., et al. “Healthcare costs of frailty: implications for long-term care”. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 20 (2019): 102-103.

Citation

Citation: Abdulmalik Almufarrih., et al. “The Prevalence of Frailty and its Associated Risk Factors Among the Saudi Elderly Population in Primary Health Care in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 5.12 (2021): 158-165.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Abdulmalik Almufarrih., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.




Metrics

Acceptance rate30%
Acceptance to publication20-30 days
Impact Factor1.403

Indexed In





Contact US