Does Frailty Predict Health Care Utilization in Community-Living Older Romanians?

Background. The predictive value of frailty assessment is still debated. We analyzed the predictive value of frailty of independent living elderly. The outcomes variables were visits to the general practitioner, hospital admission, and occurrence of new health problems. Methods. A one-year follow-up study was executed among 215 community-living old Romanians. General practitioners reported the outcome variables of patients, whose frailty was assessed one year before, using the Groningen Frailty Indicator. The predictive validity is analyzed by descriptive and regression analysis. Results. Three-quarters of all participants visited their general practitioner three times more last year and one-third were at least once admitted to a hospital. Patients who scored frail one year before were more often admitted to a hospital. Visits to the general practitioner and occurrence of new health problems were not statistically significant related to frailty scores. The frailty items polypharmacy, social support, and activities in daily living were associated with adverse outcomes. Conclusions. The predictive value of frailty instruments as the Groningen Frailty Indicator is still limited. More research is needed to predict health outcomes, health care utilization, and quality of life of frailty self-assessment instruments. Validation research on frailty in different "environments" is recommended to answer the question to what extent contextual characteristics influence the predictive value.