Impacto del estatus de fragilidad sobre la salud y calidad de vida en personas mayores españolas

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to evaluate the predictive power of a latent measure of frailty based on the physical indicators proposed for the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) on the quality of life and perceived health status in a representative sample of Spanish older adults. DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional study. SETTING: Spain. PARTICIPANTS: The sample was composed of 4,498 community-dwelling older Spanish adults aged 60 or over, extracted from wave six of SHARE. PRINCIPAL MEASUREMENTS: A structural equation model was used to define the frailty factor based on the five physical indicators proposed for SHARE (mobility, appetite, fatigue, activity, and strength), and test its effects on quality of life and perceived health status. RESULTS: Results showed an excellent fit of the model to the data (P < .001, CFI = .977, and SRMR = .041). Frailty factor explained 39.5% of the variance in quality of life and 61.6% of the variance in perceived health. CONCLUSIONS: The latent factor of frailty presented in this construct has an excellent fit to the data. The predictive power of frailty on the quality of life and perceived health in a sample of the Spanish population is highlighted.