Search

Objectives: This study aims to develop a multidimensional frailty assessment tool including physical, psychological, and social frailty and to examine its psychometric property in a clinical setting., Methods: Through a literature review and gathered expert perspectives, the Korean Frailty Scale (KFS, 0-6 points) was developed with six questions about weight loss, self-assessment of health status, energy loss, fatigue, social network, and support. The psychometric property was then validated in community-dwelling older adults using the Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Survey (2016-2019). Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analyses determined optimal cutoff scores for frail, pre-frail, and robust. The predictive validity for mortality, hospitalization, fall events, and disability, such as declines in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) was assessed after adjusting for age, sex, education level, household income, body-mass index, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, marital status, current employment, and residence., Results: The 2,923 participants (mean age: 76.0±3.9 years, female: 52.2%) were categorized into frail (≥3 points, 21.1%), pre-frail (1-2 points, 50.2%) and robust (0 points, 28.7%) groups. Sensitivity (88.3%), specificity (91.6%), and the area under the ROC curve (0.730) for the frail group were sufficient to be accepted as a new frailty scale. The frail group had increased risk of falling (relative risk [RR]: 1.810, 95% confidence interval: 1.354-2.420), mortality (hazard ratio, 6.596, 1.802-24.137), and IADL decline (RR, 1.638, 1.231-2.178)., Conclusion: The KFS is a new multidimensional frailty scale for clinical geriatric assessment that was confirmed as effective for predicting adverse health outcomes in Korean community-dwelling older adults., Competing Interests: All of the authors declare that there were no conflicts of interest.

Background: The concept of frailty has been suggested to comprise physical, mental, and social phenotypes. However, there is no general consensus about the appropriate components for assessing frailty., Objectives: The purpose of this study was to reach consensus on components of frailty assessment using the Delphi process., Methods: To achieve consensus on the definition of frailty, a modified Delphi method was used. Geriatric and gerontologic experts were selected from various fields. The detailed components of frailty were composed of data from the Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Study. Establishing consensus and collecting opinions from experts were conducted using a modified Delphi method., Results: Overall, nine domains with 14 components of frailty assessment were accepted. There was consensus on the necessity of a broad phenotype including physical, mental, and social frailty., Conclusions: Consensus on the components of a frailty assessment in a clinical setting is achieved through the Delphi process to establish a new tool of frailty assessment., Competing Interests: All of the authors declare that there were no conflicts of interest.