Abstract
BackgroundThe identification of individuals at increased risk of poor health-related outcomes is a priority. Geriatric research has proposed several indicators shown to be associated with these outcomes, but a head-to-head comparison of their predictive accuracy is still lacking. We therefore aimed to compare the accuracy of five geriatric health indicators in predicting different outcomes among older persons: frailty index (FI), frailty phenotype (FP), walking speed (WS), multimorbidity, and a summary score including clinical diagnoses, functioning, and disability (the Health Assessment Tool; HAT).MethodsData were retrieved from the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen, an ongoing longitudinal study including 3363 people aged 60+. To inspect the accuracy of geriatric health indicators, we employed areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for the prediction of 3-year and 5-year mortality, 1-year and 3-year unplanned hospitalizations (1+), and contacts with healthcare providers in the 6 months before and after baseline evaluation (2+).ResultsFI, WS, and HAT showed the best accuracy in the prediction of mortality [AUC(95%CI) for 3-year mortality 0.84 (0.82–0.86), 0.85 (0.83–0.87), 0.87 (0.85–0.88) and AUC(95%CI) for 5-year mortality 0.84 (0.82–0.86), 0.85 (0.83–0.86), 0.86 (0.85–0.88), respectively]. Unplanned hospitalizations were better predicted by the FI [AUC(95%CI) 1-year 0.73 (0.71–0.76); 3-year 0.72 (0.70–0.73)] and HAT [AUC(95%CI) 1-year 0.73 (0.71–0.75); 3-year 0.71 (0.69–0.73)]. The most accurate predictor of multiple contacts with healthcare providers was multimorbidity [AUC(95%CI) 0.67 (0.65–0.68)]. Predictions were generally less accurate among younger individuals (< 78 years old).ConclusionSpecific geriatric health indicators predict clinical outcomes with different accuracy. Comprehensive indicators (HAT, FI, WS) perform better in predicting mortality and hospitalization. Multimorbidity exhibits the best accuracy in the prediction of multiple contacts with providers.
Highlights
The identification of individuals at increased risk of poor health-related outcomes is a priority
The baseline characteristics of the study population are shown in Table 1: the mean age was 74.7 and 2182 (65%) participants were female
The scores for all indicators were worse among older individuals, as shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1a, with the exception of the count of chronic conditions, which exhibited a plateau and a subsequent slight decline after the age of 90 years
Summary
The identification of individuals at increased risk of poor health-related outcomes is a priority. Geriatric research has proposed several indicators shown to be associated with these outcomes, but a head-to-head comparison of their predictive accuracy is still lacking. We aimed to compare the accuracy of five geriatric health indicators in predicting different outcomes among older persons: frailty index (FI), frailty phenotype (FP), walking speed (WS), multimorbidity, and a summary score including clinical diagnoses, functioning, and disability (the Health Assessment Tool; HAT). The identification of individuals at increased risk of poor health-related outcomes is a clinical and public health priority. Researchers in geriatrics have proposed several indicators shown to be strongly associated with the development of poor health-associated outcomes, such as death and unplanned hospitalizations. Summary scores evaluating multiple domains have been shown to have high predictive accuracy [18, 19]
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