We validate the Clinical Frailty Scale by examining its independent predictive validity for 30-day mortality, ICU admission, and hospitalization and by determining its reliability. We also determine ...frailty prevalence in our emergency department (ED) as measured with the Clinical Frailty Scale.
This was a prospective observational study including consecutive ED patients aged 65 years or older, from a single tertiary care center during a 9-week period. To examine predictive validity, association with mortality was investigated through a Cox proportional hazards regression; hospitalization and ICU transfer were investigated through multivariable logistic regression. We assessed reliability by calculating Cohen's weighted κ for agreement of experts who independently assigned Clinical Frailty Scale levels, compared with trained study assistants. Frailty was defined as a Clinical Frailty Scale score of 5 and higher.
A total of 2,393 patients were analyzed in this study, of whom 128 died. Higher frailty levels were associated with higher hazards for death independent of age, sex, and condition (medical versus surgical). The area under the curve for 30-day mortality prediction was 0.81 (95% confidence interval CI 0.77 to 0.85), for hospitalization 0.72 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.74), and for ICU admission 0.69 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.73). Interrater reliability between the reference standard and the study team was good (weighted Cohen’s κ was 0.74; 95% CI 0.64 to 0.85). Frailty prevalence was 36.8% (n=880).
The Clinical Frailty Scale appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to identify frailty in the ED. It might provide ED clinicians with useful information for decisionmaking in regard to triage, disposition, and treatment.
Objective
To validate the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) for prediction of 1‐year all‐cause mortality in the emergency department (ED) and compare its performance to the Emergency Severity Index (ESI).
...Methods
Prospective cohort study at the ED of a tertiary care center in Northwestern Switzerland. All patients aged ≥65 years were included from March 18 to May 20, 2019, after informed consent. Frailty status was assessed using CFS, excluding level 9 (palliative). Acuity level was assessed using ESI. Both CFS and ESI were adjusted for age, sex and presenting condition in multivariable logistic regression. Prognostic performance was assessed for discrimination and calibration separately. Estimates were internally validated by Bootstrapping. Restricted mean survival time (RMST) was determined for all levels of CFS.
Results
In the final study population of 2191 patients, 1‐year all‐cause mortality was 17% (n = 372). RMST values ranged from 219 days for CFS 8 to 365 days for CFS 1. The adjusted CFS model had an area under receiver operating characteristic of 0.767 (95% confidence interval CI: 0.741–0.793), compared to 0.703 (95% CI: 0.673–0.732) for the adjusted ESI model.
Conclusion
The CFS predicts 1‐year all‐cause mortality for older ED patients and predicts survival time in a graded manner. The CFS is superior to the ESI when adjusted for age, sex, and presenting condition.
Risk stratification for older people based on aggregated vital signs lack the accuracy to predict mortality at presentation to the Emergency Department (ED). We aimed to develop and internally ...validate the Frailty adjusted Prognosis in ED tool (FaP-ED) for 30-day mortality combining frailty and aggregated vital signs.
Single-center prospective cohort of undifferentiated ED patients aged 65 or older, consecutively sampled upon ED presentation from a tertiary Emergency Center. Vital signs were aggregated using the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) as a measure of illness or injury severity and frailty was assessed with the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS). The FaP-ED was constructed by combining NEWS and CFS in multivariable logistic regression. The primary outcome was 30-day mortality. Measures of discrimination and calibration were assessed to evaluate predictive performance and internally validated using bootstrapping.
2250 patients were included, 67 (1.8%) were omitted from analyses due to missing CFS, loss to follow-up, or terminal illness. Thirty-day mortality rate was 5.4% (N = 122, 95% CI = 4.5%-6.4%). Median NEWS was 1 (Inter-Quartile Range (IQR): 0-3) and median CFS was 4 (IQR: 3-5). The Area Under Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUROC) for FaP-ED was 0.86 (95% CI = 0.83-0.90). This was significantly higher than NEWS (0.81, 95% CI = 0.77-0.85, DeLong: Z = 3.5, p < 0.001) or CFS alone (0.82, 95% CI = 0.78-0.86, DeLong: Z = 4.4, p < 0.001). Bootstrapped estimates of FaP-ED AUROC, calibration slope, and intercept were 0.86, 0.95, and -0.09, respectively, suggesting internal validity. A decision-threshold of CFS 5 and NEWS 3 was proposed based on qualitative comparison of positive Likelihood Ratio at all relevant FaP-ED cutoffs.
Combining aggregated vital signs and frailty accurately predicted 30-day mortality at ED presentation and illustrated an important clinical interaction between frailty and illness severity. Pending external validation, the Fap-ED operationalizes the concept of such "geriatric urgency" for the ED setting.
Focus on frailty status has become increasingly important when determining care plans within and across health care sectors. A standardized frailty measure applicable for both primary and secondary ...health care sectors is needed to provide a common reference point. The aim of this study was to translate the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) into Danish (CFS-DK) and test inter-rater reliability for key health care professionals in the primary and secondary sectors using the CFS-DK.
The Clinical Frailty Scale was translated into Danish using the ISPOR principles for translation and cultural adaptation that included forward and back translation, review by the original developer, and cognitive debriefing. For the validation exercise, 40 participants were asked to rate 15 clinical case vignettes using the CFS-DK. The raters were distributed across several health care professions: primary care physicians (n = 10), community nurses (n = 10), hospital doctors from internal medicine (n = 10) and intensive care (n = 10). Inter-rater reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), and sensitivity analysis was performed using multilevel random effects linear regression.
The Clinical Frailty Scale was translated and culturally adapted into Danish and is presented in this paper in its final form. Inter-rater reliability in the four professional groups ranged from ICC 0.81 to 0.90. Sensitivity analysis showed no significant impact of professional group or length of clinical experience. The health care professionals considered the CFS-DK to be relevant for their own area of work and for cross-sectoral collaboration.
The Clinical Frailty Scale was translated and culturally adapted into Danish. The inter-rater reliability was high in all four groups of health care professionals involved in cross-sectoral collaborations. However, the use of case vignettes may reduce the generalizability of the reliability findings to real-life settings. The CFS has the potential to serve as a common reference tool when treating and rehabilitating older patients.
Background
Opioid use has more than doubled over recent decades, and Denmark occupies fifth place in the global ranking. These increases have been partly attributed to the ageing population.
...Objective
Our objective was to assess the impact of age over time on utilisation of the most commonly used opioids in Denmark.
Methods
We retrieved nationwide sales data on opioid sales in Denmark from 1999 to 2017. We investigated utilisation trends in age groups for the four opioids with the highest use. We used three volume-based metrics (defined daily doses/1000/day, oral morphine equivalents/1000/day, and packages dispensed/year) and one person-based metric (users/1000/year).
Results
The four opioids selected according to users/1000/year were tramadol (46.1), codeine and combination products (12.4 for codeine, 3.7 for codeine and acetylsalicylic acid, and 4.2 for codeine and paracetamol), morphine (17.0), and oxycodone (12.1). Overall utilisation according to volume and person metrics increased for all except codeine and combination products. Tramadol doses or strength increased, albeit less with increasing age. Oxycodone doses or strength decreased for all age groups but were nearly unchanged for the age group ≥ 80 years.
Conclusion
Tramadol is the most utilised opioid in Denmark and was prescribed at increasing doses or strengths over the study period, particularly in the younger (< 80 years) age groups. Overall, oxycodone was prescribed at decreasing doses or strengths over time but remained unchanged for the age group ≥ 80 years. There is a need to address the pharmacological treatment of pain in terms of age, with tramadol and oxycodone being possible targets for regulatory efforts.
Decisions about resuscitation preference is an essential part of patient-centered care but a prerequisite is having an idea about which questions to ask and understand how such questions may be ...clustered in dimensions. The European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2021 encourages resuscitation shared decision making in emergency care treatment plans and needs and experiences of people approaching end-of-life have been characterized within the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions. We aimed to develop, test, and validate the dimensionality of items that may influence resuscitation preference in older Emergency Department (ED) patients.
A 36-item questionnaire was designed based on qualitative interviews exploring what matters and what may influence resuscitation preference and existing literature. Items were organized in physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions. Initial pilot-testing to assess content validity included ten older community-dwelling persons. Field-testing, confirmatory factor analysis and post-hoc bifactor analysis was performed on 269 older ED patients. Several model fit indexes and reliability coefficients (explained common variance (ECV) and omega values) were computed to evaluate structural validity, dimensionality, and model-based reliability.
Items were reduced from 36 to 26 in field testing. Items concerning religious beliefs from the spiritual dimension were misunderstood and deemed unimportant by older ED patients. Remaining items concerned physical functioning in daily living, coping, self-control in life, optimism, overall mood, quality of life and social participation in life. Confirmatory factor analysis displayed poor fit, whereas post-hoc bifactor analysis displayed satisfactory goodness of fit (χ
=562.335 (p<0.001); root mean square error of approximation=0.063 (90% CI 0.055;0.070)). The self-assessed independence may be the bifactor explaining what matters to older ED patients' resuscitation preference.
We developed a questionnaire and investigated the dimensionality of what matters and may influence resuscitation preference among older ED patients. We could not confirm a spiritual dimension. Also, in bifactor analysis the expected dimensions were overruled by an overall explanatory general factor suggesting independence to be of particular importance for clinicians practicing resuscitation discussions in EDs. Studies to investigate how independence may relate to patients' choice of resuscitation preference are needed.
The Clinical Frailty Scale, which provides a common language about frailty, was recently updated to version 2.0 to cater for its increased use in areas of medicine usually involved in the care and ...treatment of older patients. We have previously translated the Clinical Frailty Scale 1.2 into Danish and found inter-rater-reliability to be excellent for primary care physicians, community nurses, and hospital doctors often involved in cross-sectoral collaborations. In this correspondence we present the Danish translation and cultural adaption of the Clinical Frailty Scale 2.0. Our recent findings on cross-sectoral inter-rater reliability for the Clinical Frailty Scale 1.2 are likely also applicable for the Clinical Frailty Scale 2.0.
Early Warning Scores (EWSs) have a great potential to assist clinical decision-making in the emergency department (ED). However, many EWS contain methodological weaknesses in development and ...validation and have poor predictive performance in older patients. The aim of this study was to develop and externally validate an International Early Warning Score (IEWS) based on a recalibrated National Early warning Score (NEWS) model including age and sex and evaluate its performance independently at arrival to the ED in three age categories (18-65, 66-80, > 80 yr).
International multicenter cohort study.
Data was used from three Dutch EDs. External validation was performed in two EDs in Denmark.
All consecutive ED patients greater than or equal to 18 years in the Netherlands Emergency department Evaluation Database (NEED) with at least two registered vital signs were included, resulting in 95,553 patients. For external validation, 14,809 patients were included from a Danish Multicenter Cohort (DMC).
Model performance to predict in-hospital mortality was evaluated by discrimination, calibration curves and summary statistics, reclassification, and clinical usefulness by decision curve analysis. In-hospital mortality rate was 2.4% ( n = 2,314) in the NEED and 2.5% ( n = 365) in the DMC. Overall, the IEWS performed significantly better than NEWS with an area under the receiving operating characteristic of 0.89 (95% CIs, 0.89-0.90) versus 0.82 (0.82-0.83) in the NEED and 0.87 (0.85-0.88) versus 0.82 (0.80-0.84) at external validation. Calibration for NEWS predictions underestimated risk in older patients and overestimated risk in the youngest, while calibration improved for IEWS with a substantial reclassification of patients from low to high risk and a standardized net benefit of 5-15% in the relevant risk range for all age categories.
The IEWS substantially improves in-hospital mortality prediction for all ED patients greater than or equal to18 years.
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