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

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.