Association of frailty in hospitalized and institutionalized elderly in the community-dwelling

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: to investigate the association between frailty with hospitalization and institutionalization in a follow-up study of elderly residents. METHOD: the follow-up study was performed in 2008 and 2013 with elderly of both genders, aged 65 years and older who were living in the community-dwelling. The sampling procedure performed was probabilistic, with dual-stage clustering. In 2008, 515 elderly people were interviewed and, in 2013, 262. We used the socioeconomic and demographic data, self-reported morbidity, specific data of hospitalization and institutionalization. Frailty was measured by the Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS), and functional capacity through the Functional Independence Measure. RESULTS: we found the mean gross EFS score was higher among resident elderly who were hospitalized and institutionalized and was statistically significant in both investigated years. CONCLUSION: the confirmation of association between frailty and hospitalization and institutionalization reinforces the importance of the subject, and highlights frailty as an important tool for risk estimates for these adverse events.