Prevalence and associated factors of frailty in adults over 70 years in the community

Objective: To estimate the prevalence and analyze the factors associated with frailty syndrome, in adults >70 years old, belonging to a health center in Asturias. Design: Observational cross-sectional study. Participants: Adults >70 years of age. Site: Health Centre of Llano (Asturias). Main measurements: Frailty was defined by the presence of >3 criteria of Fried's frailty phenotype. Secondary variables: sociodemographic characteristics, health status, functional status, cognitive-affective status and social risk. A bivariate analysis and logistic regression were performed. Results: Four hundred eight participants were included, with a mean age of 79.8 (SD 6.6), 59.1% female. The prevalence of frailty was 27.7% and 44.9% for pre-frailty. The sociodemographic profile is that of a woman (77%), of high age (>84 years) (50.4%), without studies (65.5%), widow (48.7%) with low economic status (47.8%) and at social risk (OR: 3.3; 95% CI: 2.5-4). Factors that were statistically associated with frailty syndrome were: high comorbidity (OR: 2.7; 95% CI: 1.5-5), polypharmacy (OR: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.3-3), perception of quality of life with health (OR: 0.95; 95% CI: 0.93-0.97), impaired ambulation (OR: 17.9; 95% CI: 7.1-45.3), support for walking (OR: 10.5; 95% CI: 4.7-23.4), high risk of falls (OR: 6.4; 95% CI: 3.8-10.8), ABVD (OR: 4; 95% CI: 2.4-6.6), AIVD (OR: 9.7; 95% CI: 4.7-20), disability (OR: 37.7; 95% CI: 52.2-274.5), cognitive impairment (OR: 4.1; 95% CI: 1.8-9.3) and depression (OR: 4.8; 95% CI: 2.7-8.7). Conclusions: Frailty is a multifactorial syndrome, with a high prevalence in those over 70 years of age, in which, in addition to Fried's criteria of frailty, aspects of health, functional, cognitive affective and social status must be analyzed. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).