Prevalence of frailty and its association with depressive symptoms among older adults in Singapore

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The aims of the study were to (1) estimate the prevalence of frailty among community-dwelling older adults , and (2) investigate the independent association between level of frailty and depressive symptoms.

Methods: A total of 721 older adults (aged 60 and above ) were included in this study. Severity of frailty was determined using the Clinical Frailty Scale and further classified into four levels (CFS1-3: F1, CFS4: F2, CFS5: F3, and CFS6-7: F4). The depressive symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The prevalence of frailty by four levels was described and the association between level of frailty and depressive symptoms was assessed using multiple linear regression.

Results: The prevalence of frailty among the study population was 24.5% (F2: 14.4%, F3:3.7%, F4: 6.4%). There was no significant difference in level of frailty between male and female. With the increase in severity level of frailty, older adults reported substantially higher depressive symptom scores (p < .001), even after controlling for socio-demographics, number of non-mental chronic conditions, and number of medications taken regularly.

Conclusions: Level of frailty is independently associated with depressive symptoms among community-dwelling older population, which is not fully explained by symptom overlap, socio-demographic, and comorbidity covariates.

KEYWORDS:

• Depressive symptoms
• frailty
• association
• older adults

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ruijie Li and Charis Ng Wei Ling for valuable and constructive inputs during the planning and development of this research work, Reuben Ong for administrative assistance with project management, all the trained surveyors for assistance with data collection and the subjects whose participation made this study possible.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.