Items analysis of the Frailty Index (FI-35): Insight in the contribution of each item to the level of frailty

PLoS One. 2021 Nov 8;16(11):e0258588. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258588. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Background: The FI-35 is a valid multidimensional Chinese frailty assessment instrument. Like other scales, functional measures rely on the information the total score provides. Our research aimed to analyze the contribution of each item.

Methods: Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the sample characteristics. The expected item score (EIS) was used to determine how the items contribute to the generic measure of frailty.

Results: This study showed that most of the EIS curves increased across the entire range of frailty levels, and most of the items discriminate relatively well over the entire frailty range. Items differentially contributed to the total frailty score and differentially discriminated between frailty levels.

Conclusions: Although nearly all items monotonically increased with frailty levels, there were large differences between items in their ability to differentiate between persons being either weakly, moderately or highly frail.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Aging / pathology
  • Aging / physiology
  • China / epidemiology
  • Cognitive Dysfunction / epidemiology*
  • Cognitive Dysfunction / physiopathology
  • Emotions / physiology*
  • Female
  • Frail Elderly / psychology*
  • Geriatric Assessment*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Resistance Training
  • Sleep / physiology
  • Walking / physiology

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Humanity and Social Science Youth foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No.18YJAZH060) and (No.21YJCZH087). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.