Frailty among the elderly rural people of Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Frailty is a multidimensional geriatric syndrome resulted as the loss of reserves that gives rise to vulnerability. Measurement of frailty is useful at a health care policy level as well as clinically. Objective: To estimate the prevalence of frailty among the elderly population in a rural community of Bangladesh. Methods: This was a cross-sectional type of descriptive study carried out in a rural area of Bangladesh. All the people aged 265 years of the village constituted the study population. A total of 174 elderly people available at their houses during data collection were included in this study. Data were collected by face to face interview with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to record the age, gender and frailty status of the participants. Frailty status was measured by a valid and reliable Frailty scale. Descriptive analytical techniques involving frequency distribution, computation of percentage etc. were applied. Chi-square test was applied to find out the association of frailty status with age and gender of the participants. Results: Out of 174 elderly people, 161 (92.53%) people were found to be frail. Women had significantly higher occurrence of frailty (97.59%) than men (87.91%). Advancement of age showed no significant change in the result. Conclusion: A detailed and extensive study should be planned in the national level to reveal the actual situation of the elderly people and specific policy should be taken by the government to take proper care of this population group. All the concerning agencies should also be aware of the situation.