Factors associated with frailty in the geriatric outpatient service of a university hospital in Bogotá, Colombia.

Introduction: Frailty is defined as a state prior to disability, characterized by greater vulnerability to external stressors. Frailty contributes to negative outcomes such as falls, hospitalization, disability, and mortality. The objective of this study is to identify the prevalence and evaluate the factors associated with frailty in patients of the geriatric outpatient service of the Hospital Universitario San Ignacio.

Materials and methods: a cross-sectional study was carried out including patients seen for the first time in the geriatric outpatient clinic of the HUSI in Bogotá, Colombia between August 2016 and March 2020.

Results: the prevalence of frailty was 35.4%. Statistically significant variables associated with frailty were age over 80 years (OR 2.07), female gender (OR 1.40), multimorbidity (OR 2.13), and nutritional status (OR 2.23). When the analysis was adjusted for performance variables, only multimorbidity (OR 2.46 95% CI 1.62 – 3.75 p 0.001), slow walking speed (OR 5.15 95% CI 3.0 – 8.60 p 0.001) and low calf circumference (OR 1.60 CI 95% 1.03 – 2.50 p 0.06) were statistically significant.

Conclusion: the prevalence of frailty found in our study is higher compared to national reference surveys, the associated variables coincide with those found in the literature such as older age, female sex, number of comorbidities and malnutrition. In addition, an association was found with other performance measures such as low calf circumference and slow walking speed.