Physical, Psychological, Cognitive and Social Frailty Domains in Community-Dwelling Adults Aged 45–85: a Cross-sectional Analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)

Abstract

Background Reported estimates of frailty prevalence vary considerably. At least partially attributable to differences in the conceptualization of frailty used, a better understanding of the inter-relationships among frailty domains could clarify contributors to the noted heterogeneity. Methods A global frailty index (FI) created from baseline data on 30,097 Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging comprehensive cohort participants was used to define physical, psychological, cognitive, and social domain-specific FIs. These were divided into quintiles with the highest 20% (Q5) representing the frailest participants. Logistic regression was used to estimate the associations between age group and biological sex with domain-specific FIs in unadjusted and adjusted (income, smoking status, nutritional risk, physical activity, social participation, interaction between sex and age group) models. The association between Q5 membership among the frailty domains was estimated using polychoric correlation coefficients. Results The prevalence of physical and cognitive frailty increased with age, but psychological frailty decreased, especially in males. Social frailty showed gradual increases with age in females that were only evident in the oldest age group (75–85) among men. The age-groups*sex interaction p value was p