The Effect of Serum Albumin Level on the Frailty Score in Elderly Patients Attending Primary Health Care Centres in Babel

Abstract

Background: Frailty can be described as a clinical state of practical reserve decline related to ageing. Slowness, fragile, fatigue, and low performance are incorporated and affect the fulfilment of effective tasks negatively. Both under and overweight could lead to a frailty dilemma. It is well known that serum albumin is the most considerable serum protein and is used as an indication of nutritional status. Many studies revealed that hypoalbuminemia was related to higher frailty scores. The universal prevalence of frailty among the elderly population varies between 4% and 59.1% Objective: Assessment of the effect of serum albumin on frailty score among patients who are attending primary health care centres. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a primary health care centre in Babil governorate/Iraq. A convenient sample of 71 old patients attending the primary health care centre. Selected patients of either sex were included and any old patients 60 yrs. old and above (male or female) were included, whereas, anyone below 60 yrs. old were excluded. The Socio-demographic characteristics of the patients (name, age, gender, residence, marital status, occupation, and level of education), and anthropometric measurements (weight, height, body mass index) were analyzed in this study. Frailty score was measured by using (rockwood_cfs) for each patient. P_value of ≤0.05 was considered significant. Results: Sociodemographic characteristics showed that frailty score was higher among the age group between 60 to 69 years with a mean age of 67.10 ± 6.75 yrs (P = 0.000). Male gender, urban residence, married, housewife group and primary education showed the highest proportion among the study group patients. Overweight and obesity comprised 33.8% and 50.7% respectively. Our study demonstrated that weight was significantly associated with frailty score (P = 0.031). physical activity was not statistically significant in association with the frailty score. Serum albumin levels of the study group patients was a statistically significant association with frailty scores, where the highest proportion of high frailty scores was among those with low serum albumin levels (P = 0.047).