Frailty among community-dwelling elderly Mexican people: prevalence and association with sociodemographic characteristics, health state and the use of health services.

AIM: To estimate the prevalence of frailty phenotypes and their association with the sociodemographic characteristics, health state and the use of health services in the last 6 months among community-dwelling elderly in Mexico City.

METHODS: The present study included 1933 elderly individuals from Mexico City. We estimated the prevalence of the frailty phenotype based on Fried and Walston. Household interviews were carried out to collect information on sociodemographics (sex, age, education, marital status, live alone, paid job), health state (activities of daily living, cognitive function, depression, comorbidity, nutritional status) and the use of health services in the last 6 months.

RESULTS: The estimated prevalence of frailty was 15.7%, pre-frailty at 33.3% and non-frailty at 51.0%. The statistically relevant associations in the pre-frail elderly were female (OR 0.83), older age (OR 2.48), single (OR 1.03), living alone (OR 1.23), no paid work (OR 0.82), limitations in the basic activities of daily living (OR 2.11) and instrumental activities of daily living (OR 2.10), cognitive impairment (OR 1.49), depression symptoms (OR 3.82), underweight/malnourished (OR 1.89), overweight/obesity (OR 0.80), moderate comorbidity (OR 2.05), and use of health services (OR 1.04) using the non-frail phenotype as the comparison category. Frailly is associated with female (OR 1.05), older age (OR 10.32), less educated (OR 2.51), single OR 1.39), living alone (OR 0.86), no paid work (OR 1.16), limitations in the basic activities of daily living (OR 7.66) and instrumental activities of daily living (OR 8.42), cognitive impairment (OR 3.02), depression symptoms (OR 11.23), underweight/malnourished (OR 1.49), overweight/obesity (OR 0.49), moderate comorbidity (OR 3.55), and use of health services (OR 1.99) using the non-frail phenotype as the comparison category.

CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that older age, disability, comorbidity, cognitive impairment and depression could have an influence role in frailty.