Conclusions The TFI has the most robust evidence of reliability and validity and has been the most extensively examined in terms of psychometric properties .
However , there is insufficient evidence at present to determine the best tool for use in research and clinical practice .
Background Frailty is widely recognised as a distinct multifactorial clinical syndrome that implies vulnerability .
The links between frailty and adverse outcomes such as death and institutionalisation have been widely evidence d. There is currently no gold st and ard frailty assessment tool ; optimizing the assessment of frailty in older people therefore remains a research priority .
The objective of this systematic review is to identify existing multi-component frailty assessment tools that were specifically developed to assess frailty in adults aged ≥60 years old and to systematic ally and critically evaluate the reliability and validity of these tools .
The predictive validity of three self-report screening instruments for identifying frail older people in the community
Background If brief and easy to use self report screening tools are available to identify frail elderly , this may avoid costs and unnecessary assessment of healthy people . This study investigates the predictive validity of three self-report instruments for identifying community-dwelling frail elderly . Methods This is a prospect i ve study with 1-year follow-up among community-dwelling elderly aged 70 or older ( n = 430 ) to test sensitivity , specificity , and positive and negative predicted values of the Groningen Frailty Indicator , Tilburg Frailty Indicator and Sherbrooke Postal Question naire on development of disabilities , hospital admission and mortality . Odds ratios were calculated to compare frail versus non-frail groups for their risk for the adverse outcomes . Results Adjusted odds ratios show that those identified as frail have more than twice the risk ( GFI , 2.62 ; TFI , 2.00 ; SPQ , 2,49 ) for developing disabilities compared to the non-frail group ; those identified as frail by the TFI and SPQ have more than twice the risk of being admitted to a hospital . Sensitivity and specificity for development of disabilities are 71 % and 63 % ( GFI ) , 62 % and 71 % ( TFI ) and 83 % and 48 % ( SPQ ) . Regarding mortality , sensitivity for all tools are about 70 % and specificity between 41 % and 61 % . For hospital admission , SPQ scores the highest for sensitivity ( 76 % ) . Conclusion All three instruments do have potential to identify older persons at risk , but their predictive power is not sufficient yet . Further research on these and other instruments is needed to improve targeting frail elderly
Conclusions The TFI has the most robust evidence of reliability and validity and has been the most extensively examined in terms of psychometric properties .
However , there is insufficient evidence at present to determine the best tool for use in research and clinical practice .
Background Frailty is widely recognised as a distinct multifactorial clinical syndrome that implies vulnerability .
The links between frailty and adverse outcomes such as death and institutionalisation have been widely evidence d. There is currently no gold st and ard frailty assessment tool ; optimizing the assessment of frailty in older people therefore remains a research priority .
The objective of this systematic review is to identify existing multi-component frailty assessment tools that were specifically developed to assess frailty in adults aged ≥60 years old and to systematic ally and critically evaluate the reliability and validity of these tools .