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Development of a Frailty Screening Tool Using Electronic Community Pharmacy Records
Marie Carrein1, Els Mehuys2, Lies Lahousse2
1Pharmaceutical Care Unit, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University, Ottergemsesteenweg 460, 9000, Ghent, Belgium. marie.carrein@ugent.be.
Drugs & Aging
|November 23, 2024
Summary
Community pharmacists can now screen for frailty in older adults using electronic pharmacy records. This tool helps identify individuals needing medication review to prevent harm.
Area of Science:
- Geriatric Medicine
- Pharmaceutical Sciences
- Public Health
Background:
- Frailty increases medication-related harm risk in older adults.
- Community pharmacists are key in medication reviews.
- Current frailty assessments are impractical in community pharmacies.
Purpose of the Study:
- Develop a frailty screening tool using routine electronic pharmacy records.
- Enable frailty identification within community pharmacy settings.
Main Methods:
- Recruited community-dwelling adults (≥ 70 years) with ≥ 5 chronic medications.
- Assessed frailty using SHARE-FI75+.
- Developed a two-stage logistic regression model using pharmacy data and other easily collected variables.
Main Results:
- Recruited 875 participants; 14.8% were frail.
- Stage 1 model (pharmacy data) achieved AUC 0.77.
- Stage 2 model (added data) improved AUC to 0.82.
Conclusions:
- A novel frailty screening tool was developed using electronic pharmacy records.
- This tool facilitates frailty screening in community pharmacies.
- Identifies individuals who may benefit most from medication review; external validation is recommended.
