Frailty in Primary Care: Validation of the simplified Zulfiqar Frailty Scale (sZFS).

Abrar-Ahmad Zulfiqar

doi:10.3390/medicines8090051

Abstract

Introduction: Frailty scales are used very rarely by general practitioners as they are time consuming and are not well-adapted to current needs. Thus, we have designed with general practitioners a new scale for the early and rapid detection of frailty syndrome, called the simplified Zulfiqar Frailty Scale (sZFS). Patients and methods: This scale was tested in two general medicine practices in Normandy (France) for a total of six months and compared to the GFST tool “The Gerontopole Frailty Screening Tool”. Only patients who were over 65 years old with an ADL ≥ 4/6 were included. Results: 107 were patients included in the general medicine practice, with an average age of 74 years. The sZFS questionnaire has a shorter administration time than the GFST questionnaire (p < 0.001). Its sensitivity is of 93%, and its specificity is 58%. Its positive predictive value is 57%, and its negative predictive value is 93%. The area under the curve of the sZFS scale is 0.83 [0.76; 0.91] (IC95%). Conclusion: Our frailty screening scale is simple, relevant, and quick.

Highlights

Preventing dependency is a public health objective
General practitioners would be the best choice of health care professional for identifying frailty, but it is hard to do this in current practice with validated tools
In the European SHARE study, the prevalence of frailty varied from 6% to 43% depending on the eight tools used [1]. These tools were validated by international cohort studies for diagnosing frailty, but appear difficult to use in general medical practice

Summary

Introduction

Preventing dependency is a public health objective. Frailty can be used to predict the risk of dependency, falling, hospitalization, and death. In the European SHARE study, the prevalence of frailty varied from 6% to 43% depending on the eight tools used [1]. These tools were validated by international cohort studies for diagnosing frailty, but appear difficult to use in general medical practice. We have developed a tool for identifying frailty in general medicine for independent subjects over 65 years old that is intended to be quick and easy to use. It takes into account various factors related to frailty risk (social, cognitive, nutritional, falls, and iatrogenic)

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion