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Review
. 2022 May 12;10(5):895.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare10050895.

Prevalence of Frailty among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Asian Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Thi-Lien To  1   2 , Thanh-Nhan Doan  1   3 , Wen-Chao Ho  1 , Wen-Chun Liao  4   5
Affiliations
Review

Prevalence of Frailty among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Asian Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Thi-Lien To et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

This study aimed to synthesize frailty prevalence among community-dwelling older adults in Asia and identify factors influencing prevalence estimates. Five electronic databases were searched by 29 April 2022, including representative samples of community-dwelling adults who were aged 60 years and older and lived in Asia. Cross-sectional or national longitudinal population-based cohort studies completed with validated instruments were selected. Twenty-one studies with 52,283 participants were included. The pooled prevalence rate of frailty was 20.5% (95% CI = 15.5% to 26.0%). The estimated frailty prevalence was 14.6% (95% CI = 10.9% to 18.8%) while assessed by the Fried frailty phenotype, 28.0% (95% CI = 21.3% to 35.3%) by the Cumulative Frailty Index, 36.4% (95% CI = 33.6% to 39.3%) by the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) index, and 46.3% (95% CI = 40.1% to 52.4%) by the Clinical Frailty Scale (p < 0.01). Subgroup analysis in studies using the Fried’s phenotype tool found that frailty prevalence was increased with older age (p = 0.01) and was higher in those who were single (21.5%) than in married participants (9.0%) (p = 0.02). The study results supported a better understanding of frailty prevalence in different geographical distributions and provide references for health policy decision-making regarding preventing frailty progression in older adults.

Keywords: community dwelling; frailty; meta-analysis; older adults; prevalence; systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram of the Study Selection Process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest Plot of Overall Pooled Prevalence of Frailty [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Funnel Plot of Prevalence Rates of Frailty Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Asian countries. P for Egger’s test = 0.63.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Pooled Prevalence of Frailty stratified by Frailty Assessment Method among community-dwelling older adults [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50].
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