Title:Association of Newly Diagnosed Hypertension and Polypharmacy with
Frailty in a Tertiary Hospital Patients from Maracaibo City, Venezuela
Volume: 18
Issue: 1
Author(s): Juan Salazar*, Isabel Borges*, Alejandra Rivas-Motenegro, Nelson Villasmil-Hernandez, Manuel Nava and Roberto Añez
Affiliation:
- Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital General del Sur “Dr. Pedro Iturbe”, Maracaibo, Venezuela
- Endocrine and
Metabolic Diseases Research Center, School of Medicine, University of Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela
- Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital General del Sur “Dr. Pedro Iturbe”, Maracaibo, Venezuela
Keywords:
Frailty, elderly, hypertension, severity, polypharmacy, pre-frailty.
Abstract:
Background: As a syndrome of physiological vulnerability and multifactorial progressive
decline tightly related to age, frailty has been associated with several illnesses, and in particular
cardiovascular disease.
Objective: To assess the factors associated with the frailty syndrome in older adults evaluated in
the outpatient clinic of a tertiary hospital from Maracaibo city, Venezuela.
Materials and Methods: An observational, analytical, cross-sectional study was performed on subjects
of both genders, over 60 years old that went to the Internal Medicine outpatient clinic of the
Hospital General del Sur “Dr. Pedro Iturbe” from Maracaibo city, Venezuela. Sampling was performed
via a non-probabilistic, intentional method. For each subject with frailty or pre-frailty, a
control subject was selected in a 1:1 ratio according to gender; several risk factors were interrogated.
The state of frailty was determined through the FRAIL scale.
Results: Of the 201 assessed patients, 49.3% (n=99) were non-frail, 19.9% (n=40) were pre-frail
and 30.8% (n=62) were frail. The population's overall age was 68.8±6.8 in non-frails, 69.1±7.7 in
pre-frails, and 68.6±7.1 in frails. In the multivariate analysis, subjects with frailty and pre-frailty
were most likely to be receiving polypharmacy (OR: 2.36, CI95%: 1.05-5.37; P=0.04) and have hypertension
during the study (OR: 10.19, CI95%: 3.86-26.89; P<0.01).
Conclusion: The newly diagnosed hypertension and presence of polypharmacy were the factors
most associated with frailty and pre-frailty in older adults evaluated in a tertiary hospital from
Maracaibo city, Venezuela.
