Agreement between standard and self-reported assessments of physical frailty syndrome and its components in a registry of community-dwelling older adults

BACKGROUND: The ability to identify frail older adults using a self-reported version of the physical frailty phenotype (PFP) that has been validated with the standard PFP could facilitate physical frailty detection in clinical settings. METHODS: We collected data from volunteers (N = 182), ages 65 years and older, in an aging research registry in Baltimore, Maryland. Measurements included: standard PFP (walking speed, grip strength, weight loss, activity, exhaustion); and self-reported questions about walking and handgrip strength. We compared objectively-measured gait speed and grip strength to self-reported questions using Cohen’s Kappa and diagnostic accuracy tests. We used these measures to compare the standard PFP with self-reported versions of the PFP, focusing on a dichotomized identification of frail versus pre- or non-frail participants. RESULTS: Self-reported slowness had fair-to-moderate agreement (Kappa(k) = 0.34–0.56) with measured slowness; self-reported and objective weakness had slight-to-borderline-fair agreement (k = 0.10–0.21). Combining three self-reported slowness questions had highest sensitivity (81%) and negative predictive value (NPV; 91%). For weakness, three questions combined had highest sensitivity (72%), while all combinations had comparable NPV. Follow-up questions on level of difficulty led to minimal changes in agreement and decreased sensitivity. Substituting subjective for objective measures in our PFP model dichotomized by frail versus non/pre-frail, we found substantial (k = 0.76–0.78) agreement between standard and self-reported PFPs. We found highest sensitivity (86.4%) and NPV (98.7%) when comparing the dichotomized standard PFP to a self-reported version combining all slowness and weakness questions. Substitutions in a three-level model (frail, vs pre-frail, vs. non-frail) resulted in fair-to-moderate agreement (k = 0.33–0.50) with the standard PFP. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show potential utility as well as challenges of using certain self-reported questions in a modified frailty phenotype. A self-reported PFP with high agreement to the standard phenotype could be a valuable frailty screening assessment in clinical settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-03376-x.