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
. 2021 Mar 4;11(3):e041578.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041578.

Predictors of frailty among Chinese community-dwelling older adults with type 2 diabetes: a cross-sectional survey

Linglin Kong  1   2 , Huimin Zhao  1 , Junyao Fan  1 , Quan Wang  1 , Jie Li  3 , Jinbing Bai  4 , Jing Mao  3
Affiliations

Predictors of frailty among Chinese community-dwelling older adults with type 2 diabetes: a cross-sectional survey

Linglin Kong et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of frailty and identify predictors of frailty among Chinese community-dwelling older adults with type 2 diabetes.

Design: A cross-sectional design.

Setting: Two community health centres in central China.

Participants: 291 community-dwelling older adults aged ≥65 years with type 2 diabetes.

Main outcome measures: Data were collected via face-to-face interviews, anthropometric measurements, laboratory tests and community health files. The main outcome measure was frailty, as assessed by the frailty phenotype criteria. The multivariate logistic regression model was used to identify the predictors of frailty.

Results: The prevalence of prefrailty and frailty were 51.5% and 19.2%, respectively. The significant predictors of frailty included alcohol drinking (ex-drinker) (OR 4.461, 95% CI 1.079 to 18.438), glycated haemoglobin (OR 1.434, 95% CI 1.045 to 1.968), nutritional status (malnutrition risk/malnutrition) (OR 8.062, 95% CI 2.470 to 26.317), depressive symptoms (OR 1.438, 95% CI 1.166 to 1.773) and exercise behaviour (OR 0.796, 95% CI 0.716 to 0.884).

Conclusions: A high prevalence of frailty was found among older adults with type 2 diabetes in the Chinese community. Frailty identification and multifaceted interventions should be developed for this population, taking into consideration proper glycaemic control, nutritional instruction, depressive symptoms improvement and enhancement of self-care behaviours.

Keywords: general diabetes; geriatric medicine; primary care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of inclusion of participants.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. International Diabetes Federation . IDF diabetes atlas. 9th edition, 2019. Available: https://www.diabetesatlas.org
    1. Wang L, Gao P, Zhang M, et al. . Prevalence and ethnic pattern of diabetes and prediabetes in China in 2013. JAMA 2017;317:2515–23. 10.1001/jama.2017.7596 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Assar ME, Laosa O, Rodríguez Mañas L. Diabetes and frailty. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care 2019;22:52–7. 10.1097/MCO.0000000000000535 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Morley JE, Vellas B, van Kan GA, et al. . Frailty consensus: a call to action. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2013;14:392–7. 10.1016/j.jamda.2013.03.022 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chhetri JK, Zheng Z, Xu X, et al. . The prevalence and incidence of frailty in Pre-diabetic and diabetic community-dwelling older population: results from Beijing longitudinal study of aging II (BLSA-II). BMC Geriatr 2017;17:47. 10.1186/s12877-017-0439-y - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources