[Health Exam for Adults Over 65 program in Andalusia: descriptive study of participants.]

The Health Exam for Adults Over 65 (EdS65+) is a health promotion program delivered in Primary Care (PC) settings in Andalusia. It seeks early detection of frailty and implementation of person-centered biopsychosocial intervention plans. The aim of the study was to describe the characteristics and functional capacity of the participating population, as well as the interventions carried out.

The sample consists of EdS65+ participants between May 2018 and February 2020 (203,077 individuals). Sociodemographic variables, functional capacity and implemented interventions were collected. Descriptive statistics were obtained and significance tests were performed to measure the sample representativeness and to detect statistically significant differences in the study variables according to sex, age or degree of urbanization.

Functional capacity screening results were as follows: autonomous individuals accounted for 61.8%, 22.5% were dependent, 8.2% were pre-fragile, 4.8% were frail and 2.6% were categorized with low dependency. The prevalence of frailty ranged from 1.8% in persons aged 65-69 years to 7.7% in 80-84 years, with overall prevalence of 6.8% in women and 2.1% in men. In the frail population, a basic assessment was performed in 45.4% of cases, health promotion counseling in 55.2%, and prescription of a physical activity program in 43.3% of cases. A total of 19.6% of participants had one or more follow-ups and of these, 13.7% had two or more.

EdS65+ is a unique program in Europe in terms of its long-term implementation and large-scale application in Primary Care services. Hence, the results presented in this study are valuable in growing the knowledge base around frailty and the design and implementation of actions aimed at proactive health promotion and disease prevention.