Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Feb 13;18(1):46.
doi: 10.1186/s12877-018-0741-3.

Older adults' perceptions and informational needs regarding frailty

Nancy L Schoenborn  1 , Sarah E Van Pilsum Rasmussen  2 , Qian-Li Xue  2   3 , Jeremy D Walston  2 , Mara A McAdams-Demarco  2   3 , Dorry L Segev  2   3 , Cynthia M Boyd  2
Affiliations

Older adults' perceptions and informational needs regarding frailty

Nancy L Schoenborn et al. BMC Geriatr. .

Abstract

Background: Frailty has been recognized as an important medical syndrome in older adults. Growing literature supports the clinical application of frailty but US older adults' perceptions of frailty have not been explored. We aim to examine perceptions and informational needs about frailty among older adults.

Methods: This was a qualitative study involving focus groups of community-dwelling older adults with diverse age and frailty status. We explored participants' beliefs and knowledge about frailty and informational needs about frailty as a medical syndrome.

Results: The participants' mean age was 76.3. Of the 29 participants, 21 (72%) were female, and 21 (72%) were white. We identified three major themes: 1) Older adults' perceptions of frailty differed from the definition used in medical literature; they often perceived a psychological component to being frailty and some were skeptical of the syndromic definition based on multiple symptoms. 2) Compared to participants who were non-frail or pre-frail, participants who were frail were more receptive to discussing their frailty status with clinicians; 3) Participants wanted know about how to treat or prevent frailty and the risks associated with being frail. Many participants felt that these information can be conveyed without necessarily using the specific term "frail", which they perceived to have a negative connotation.

Conclusions: Older adults, especially those who are frail, may be interested to discuss frailty as a medical syndrome. However, negative perceptions are associated with the term "frail" and may be a barrier to clinical application of frailty. Further research is needed to understand acceptable ways for communicating about frailty in clinical practice.

Keywords: Communication; Frailty; Older adults; Qualitative research.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This project was approved by a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine institutional review board (IRB00067843) and written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for publication

Not Applicable.

Competing interests

We have no conflict of interest to declare. Dr. C.B. received a small payment from UptoDate for having co-authored a chapter on Multimorbidity, however we do not believe this has resulted in any conflict with the design, methodology, or results presented in this manuscript.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

References

    1. Fried LP, Tangen CM, Walston J, et al. Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2001;56(3):M146–M156. doi: 10.1093/gerona/56.3.M146. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bandeen-Roche K, Xue QL, Ferrucci L, et al. Phenotype of frailty: characterization in the women's health and aging studies. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2006;61(3):262–266. doi: 10.1093/gerona/61.3.262. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lee L, Heckman G, Molnar FJ. Frailty: identifying elderly patients at high risk of poor outcomes. Can Fam Physician. 2015;61(3):227–231. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Morley JE, Vellas B, van Kan GA, et al. Frailty consensus: a call to action. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2013;14(6):392–397. doi: 10.1016/j.jamda.2013.03.022. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sepehri A, Beggs T, Hassan A, et al. The impact of frailty on outcomes after cardiac surgery: a systematic review. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2014;148(6):3110–3117. doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2014.07.087. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources