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Measuring Frailty in HIV-infected Individuals. Identification of Frail Patients is the First Step to Amelioration and Reversal of Frailty
Published on: July 24, 2013
Determinants of frailty
Robbert J J Gobbens1, Marcel A L M van Assen, Katrien G Luijkx
1Department of Tranzo Academic Centre for Transformation in Care and Welfare, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands. r.j.j.gobbens@uvt.nl
Objectives:
To determine which determinants predict frailty and domains of frailty (physical, psychological, social) in a community-dwelling sample of elderly persons.
Design:
Cross-sectional.
Setting:
Community-based.
Participants:
A representative sample of 484 community-dwelling persons aged 75 years and older.
Measurements:
The Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI), a self-report questionnaire, was used to collect information about determinants of frailty and to assess frailty and domains of frailty (physical, psychological, social).
Results:
Results were obtained by regression and mediation analyses. The 10 determinants explain about 35% of the variance of frailty. After controlling for other determinants, medium income, an unhealthy lifestyle, and multimorbidity predicted frailty. The effects of other determinants differed across domains of frailty; age predicted physical frailty, life events predicted psychological frailty, whereas being a woman predicted social frailty because older women have a higher probability of living alone.
Conclusion:
Our finding that the effect of the determinants of frailty differs across frailty domains suggests that it is essential to divide the concept of frailty into domains.
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