Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, PO Box 25035, 3001 HA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands,
Qual Life Res. 2013 Oct;22(8):2051-61. doi: 10.1007/s11136-012-0341-1. Epub 2012 Dec 30.
Although frailty was originally a medical concept, nowadays more and more researchers are convinced of its multidimensional nature, including a psychological and social domain of frailty as well as a physical domain. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that the prediction of quality of life by physical frailty components is improved by adding psychological and social frailty components.
This cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of Dutch citizens. A total of 1,031 people aged 65 years and older completed a Web-based questionnaire containing the Tilburg Frailty Indicator for measuring physical, psychological, and social frailty, and the WHOQOL-BREF for measuring four quality of life domains (physical health, psychological, social relations, environmental).
The findings show that the prediction of all quality of life domains by eight physical components of frailty was improved after adding four psychological and three social frailty components. The psychological frailty component 'feeling down' significantly improved the prediction of all four quality of life domains, after controlling for the effects of background characteristics and all other frailty components.
This study emphasizes the importance of a multidimensional assessment of frailty in the prediction of quality of life in older people.
尽管虚弱最初是一个医学概念，但现在越来越多的研究人员相信它具有多维性，包括虚弱的心理和社会领域以及身体领域。本研究的目的是检验以下假设，即通过添加心理和社会虚弱成分，身体虚弱成分对生活质量的预测会得到改善。
这是一项横断面研究，样本为荷兰公民。共有 1031 名 65 岁及以上的人完成了一份基于网络的问卷，其中包含用于测量身体、心理和社会虚弱的蒂尔堡虚弱指标以及用于测量四个生活质量领域（身体健康、心理、社会关系、环境）的 WHOQOL-BREF。
研究结果表明，在添加四个心理和三个社会虚弱成分后，八个身体虚弱成分对所有生活质量领域的预测都得到了改善。在控制背景特征和所有其他虚弱成分的影响后，心理虚弱成分“情绪低落”显著改善了所有四个生活质量领域的预测。
本研究强调了在老年人生活质量预测中对虚弱进行多维评估的重要性。
