Objectives
To determine which determinants predict frailty and domains of frailty (physical,
psychological, social) in a community-dwelling sample of elderly persons.
Design
Cross-sectional.
Setting
Community-based.
Participants
A representative sample of 484 community-dwelling persons aged 75 years and older.
Measurements
The Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI), a self-report questionnaire, was used to collect
information about determinants of frailty and to assess frailty and domains of frailty
(physical, psychological, social).
Results
Results were obtained by regression and mediation analyses. The 10 determinants explain
about 35% of the variance of frailty. After controlling for other determinants, medium
income, an unhealthy lifestyle, and multimorbidity predicted frailty. The effects
of other determinants differed across domains of frailty; age predicted physical frailty,
life events predicted psychological frailty, whereas being a woman predicted social
frailty because older women have a higher probability of living alone.
Conclusion
Our finding that the effect of the determinants of frailty differs across frailty
domains suggests that it is essential to divide the concept of frailty into domains.
Keywords
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Article info
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest pertaining to this article.
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© 2010 American Medical Directors Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
