Factors associated with the frailty of elderly people with chronic kidney disease on hemodialysis

Abstract

The scope of this article is to identify sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with the frailty of elderly people with chronic kidney disease on hemodialysis. This involved a correlational, cross-sectional study conducted in a dialysis center in the state of São Paulo. The sample consisted of 60 participants. The Participant Characterization Instrument was used for extracting sociodemographic and clinical data and the Edmonton Frail Scale was used to evaluate the level of frailty. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify the factors associated with frailty. The mean age of the 60 patients included was 71.1 (± 6.9) years, predominantly male (70%), of which 36.7% were classified as frail. With respect to the factors associated with frailty among the variables of gender, age, self-reported skin color, schooling, monthly per capita income, hemodialysis time, number of associated diseases, falls in the year, hematocrit level, parathyroid hormone and use of calcitriol, it was found that only the monthly per capita income was significantly associated with frailty (OR = 0.44; 95% CI 0.1-0.9; p = 0.04). There was an association between frailty and income, showing that the elderly most at risk of frailty were those with lower income.