Validity and Utility of the Questionnaire-based FRAIL Scale in Older Patients with Heart Failure: Findings from the...

We investigated whether the FRAIL scale questionnaire is consistent with the Fried criteria, predicts all-cause mortality, and reflects physical dysfunction in patients with heart failure (HF).

Secondary analysis of FRAGILE-HF, a cohort study that enrolled participants from 2016 to 2018 and followed-up for 1-year of discharge.

A prospective multicenter cohort study in which 15 hospitals in Japan (8 university hospitals and 7 nonuniversity teaching hospitals) participated. We prospectively enrolled 1332 consecutive hospitalized patients ≥65 years old with HF and analyzed 1028 patients after excluding 304 patients with missing data on the FRAIL scale.

The FRAIL scale, the Fried model, and physical function were measured before discharge. The endpoint was all-cause mortality.

According to the FRAIL scale, 459 (44.6%) and 491 (47.8%) were classified as frail and prefrail, respectively. The Kappa coefficient between the FRAIL scale and the Fried criteria were 0.39 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.34-0.44; P < .001]. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curves for frailty diagnosed by the Fried criteria of the FRAIL scale was 0.74 (95% CI 0.71-0.76; P < .001). A total of 118 deaths occurred during 1 year of follow-up. After adjusting for the MAGGIC risk score and log-BNP, The FRAIL scale predicted all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 1.17; 95% CI 1.01-1.36; P = .035). The FRAIL scale was also associated with various physical dysfunctions that correlated with poor prognosis.

The FRAIL scale had moderate consistency with the Fried criteria, predicted all-cause mortality, and reflected clinically important physical dysfunctions.