Mapping instruments for assessing and stratifying frailty among community-dwelling older people: a scoping review

OBJECTIVE: To map in the current literature instruments for the assessment and stratification of frailty in community-dwelling older people, as well as to analyse them from the perspective of the Brazilian context. DESIGN: Scoping review. STUDY SELECTION: The selection of studies took place between March and April 2020. Includes electronic databases: Medline, Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences, Scopus, Web of Science and Cumulative Index of Nursing and Literature Health Alliance, in addition to searching grey literature. DATA EXTRACTION: A data extraction spreadsheet was created to collect the main information from the studies involved, from the title to the type of assessment and stratification of frailty. RESULTS: In summary, 17 frailty assessment and stratification instruments applicable to community-dwelling older people were identified. Among these, the frailty phenotype of Fried et al was the instrument most present in the studies (45.5%). The physical domain was present in all the instruments analysed, while the social, psychological and environmental domains were present in only 10 instruments. CONCLUSIONS: This review serves as a guideline for primary healthcare professionals, showing 17 instruments applicable to the context of the community-dwelling older people, pointing out advantages and disadvantages that influence the decision of the instrument to be used. Furthermore, this scoping review was a guide for further studies carried out by the same authors, which aim to compare instruments.