Prediction of mortality by the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI)

Objective: 

To predict mortality with the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) in a sample of community-dwelling older people, using a follow-up of 7 years.

Design: 

Longitudinal.

Setting and Participants: 

479 Dutch community-dwelling people aged 75 years or older.

Measurements: 

The TFI, a self-report questionnaire, was used to collect data about total, physical, psychological, and social frailty. The municipality of Roosendaal (a town in the Netherlands) provided the mortality dates.

Results: 

Total, physical, and psychological frailty predicted mortality, with unadjusted hazard ratios of 1.295, 1.168, and 1.194, and areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of 0.664, 0.671, and 0.567, respectively. After adjustment for age and gender, the areas under the curves for total, physical, and psychological frailty were 0.704, 0.702, and 0.652, respectively. Analyses using individual components of the TFI show that difficulty in walking and unexplained weight loss predict mortality.

Conclusions and Implications: 

This study has shown the predictive validity of the TFI for mortality in community-dwelling older people. Our study demonstrated that physical and psychological frailty predicted mortality. Of the individual TFI components, difficulty in walking consistently predicted mortality. For identifying frailty, using the integral instrument is recommended because total, physical, psychological, and social frailty and its components have proven their value in predicting adverse outcomes of frailty, for example, increase in health care use and a lower quality of life.