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Novel Frailty Screening Questionnaire (FSQ) Predicts 8-Year Mortality in Older Adults in China

  • Original Research
  • Physical Frailty
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Abstract

Background

Although frailty status greatly impacts health care in countries with rapidly aging populations, little is known about the frailty status in Chinese older adults.

Objectives

Given the increased health care needs associated with frailty, we sought to develop an easily applied self-report screening tool based on four of the syndromic frailty components and sought to validate it in a population of older adults in China.

Design

Prospective epidemiological cohort study.

Setting

Community-dwelling residents living in Beijing, China.

Participants

1724 community-dwelling adults aged ≥60 years in 2004 with an 8-year follow up.

Measurements

We developed a simple self-report frailty screening tool—the Frailty Screening Questionnaire (FSQ)—based on the modified Fried frailty components. The predictive ability for outcome was assessed by age and sex adjusted Cox proportional hazards model.

Results

According to FSQ criteria, 7.1% of the participants were frail. Frailty was associated with poor physical function, fractures, falls, and mortality. Both frailty and pre-frailty were associated with a higher mortality rate: frailty—hazards ratio (HR), 3.94, 95% confidence interval (CI), 3.16–4.92, P<0.001; pre-frailty—HR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.57–2.27, P <0.001; adjusted models for this variable did not affect the estimates of the association. Among the four frailty components, slowness was the strongest predictor of mortality. The combination of the four components provided the best risk prediction.

Conclusions

FSQ is a self-report frailty measurement tool that can be rapidly performed to identify older adults with higher risk of adverse health outcomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geriatrics, Beijing Geriatric Healthcare Center, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, Key Laboratory on Neurodegenerative Disease of Ministry of Education, 45 Changchun Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100053, China

    L. Ma, Zhe Tang & P. Chan

  2. Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21224, USA

    L. Ma & Jeremy D. Walston

  3. National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Beijing, 100053, China

    L. Ma, Zhe Tang & P. Chan

  4. Department of Neurology and Neurobiology, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100053, China

    P. Chan

  5. Older Americans Independence Center, Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA

    Jeremy D. Walston

Authors
  1. L. Ma
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  2. Zhe Tang
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  3. P. Chan
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  4. Jeremy D. Walston
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zhe Tang or Jeremy D. Walston.

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Ma, L., Tang, Z., Chan, P. et al. Novel Frailty Screening Questionnaire (FSQ) Predicts 8-Year Mortality in Older Adults in China. J Frailty Aging 8, 33–38 (2019). https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2018.38

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2018.38

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