Prevalence of frailty and associated factors among Saudi community-dwelling older adults: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Prevalence of frailty has been previously established in different Western countries; however, the prevalence and the burden of in the aging populations of Saudi Arabia has not been examined. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of frailty, and associated factors among Saudi older population. METHODS: The study included a total of 486 community-dwelling elderly adults aged 60 years and over living in the Riyadh area. This study took place from August 2019 to June 2020. The prevalence of frailty was determined using the Fried’s frailty phenotype. Association between sociodemographic features and clinical factors and frailty was estimated by Odds Ratio and confidence intervals (OR, IC 95%) using a multinomial logistic regression model. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty were 47.3 and 21.4%, respectively. The following factors were associated with being frail: age (OR: 6.92; 95%CI 3.11–15.41); living alone (OR: 2.50; 95%CI: 1.12–5.59); had more chronic conditions (OR: 1.96; 95%CI: 1.16–3.30); and cognitive impairment (OR: 7.07; 95%CI: 3.92–12.74). CONCLUSIONS: The Compared with other populations, the prevalence of frailty and pre-frailty in the Riyadh region of Saudi Arabia was high. The implications of frailty in this population should be discussed in future study.