Effect of an integrated care model for pre-frail and frail older people living in community.

OBJECTIVES

to evaluate the effect of an integrated care model for pre-frail and frail community-dwelling older people.

DESIGN

a quasi-experimental design.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

we enrolled people aged ≥60 years from a community care project. An inclusion criterion was pre-frailty/frailty, as measured by a simple frailty questionnaire (FRAIL) with a score of ≥1.

METHODS

we assigned participants to an intervention group (n = 183) in which they received an integrated intervention (in-depth assessment, personalised care plans and coordinated care) or a control group (n = 270) in which they received a group education session on frailty prevention. The outcomes were changes in frailty, individual domains of frailty ('fatigue', 'resistance', 'ambulation', 'illnesses' and 'loss of weight') and health services utilisation over 12 months. Assessments were conducted at baseline and at the 12-month follow-up.

RESULTS

the mean age of the participants (n = 453) at baseline was 76.1 ± 7.5 years, and 363 (80.1%) were women. At follow-up, the intervention group showed significantly greater reductions in FRAIL scores than the control group (P < 0.033). In addition, 22.4% of the intervention and 13.7% of the control participants had reverted from pre-frail/frail to robust status, with the difference reaching significance when the intervention was compared with the control group (odds ratio [OR] 1.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0-2.4) after adjustments for age, sex, living arrangement/marital status and hypercholesterolemia. For individual domains of frailty, the adjusted OR for improved 'resistance' was 1.7 (95% CI 1.0-2.8). However, no effects were found on reducing use of health services.

CONCLUSION

the integrated health and social care model reduced FRAIL scores in a combined population of pre-frail/frail community-dwelling older people attending older people's centres.