Understanding Clinical Importance of Frailty and Designing a Frailty Assessment Tool in Acute Hospitals

Abstract

Introduction: Managing the acute admission of older patients is a challenge in hospitals. Frail older people represent a larger proportion of acute admissions. Length of inpatient stay, inpatient mortality and the 90-day readmission rate are significant in this group of patients. In order to reduce the risks of adverse outcomes, frailty should be screened using an appropriate assessment tool and these patients must receive a Comprehensive GeriatricAssessment (CGA). Methods: Based on current evidences a frailty screening tool was designed and developed. The tool was validated by means of testing the inter-observer and intra-observer reproducibility. The process of validation was conducted by independent observers who did not provide any contribution in developing this tool. Results: A total of twenty patients were included. Ten patients were involved in testing the inter-observer reproducibility and eight out of total ten patients (80%) were received the same frailty scores. The intra-observer reproducibility was evaluated in ten patients and ten out of total ten patients (100%) obtained the same scores. Conclusion: The results shown on testing the inter-observer and intra-observer reproducibility of the tool were satisfactory. Thus this tool can be considered as an applicable frailty screening tool in acute hospitals.