ArticleBMC family practice2018
Identifying frailty in primary care: a qualitative description of family physicians' gestalt impressions of their older adult patients.
Article in BMC family practice, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of frailty education programs for health care professionals.Australasian journal on ageing · 2022Pooled it
- Frailty Assessment Tools in Chronic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Kidney medicine · 2025Article
- Development of a Frailty Screening Tool Using Electronic Community Pharmacy Records.Drugs & aging · 2024Article
- Article
- Hospital-Based Health Professionals' Perceptions of Frailty in Older People.The Gerontologist · 2024Article
- Frailty and Colorectal Surgery: Review and Concept of Cancer Frailty.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- 'Frailty as an adjective rather than a diagnosis'-identification of frailty in primary care: a qualitative interview study.Age and ageing · 2023Article
- Professional home care providers' conceptualisations of frailty in the context of home care: A focus group study.International journal of older people nursing · 2023Article
- Relationship between frailty and long-term care needs in Chinese community-dwelling older adults: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Perspectives on frailty screening, management and its implementation among acute care providers in Singapore: a qualitative study.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Is proactive frailty identification a good idea? A qualitative interview study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2021Article
- Perceptions, attitudes and training needs of primary healthcare professionals in identifying and managing frailty: a qualitative study.European geriatric medicine · 2021Article
- Feasibility and impact of a short training course on frailty destined for primary health care professionals.European geriatric medicine · 2021Article
- Feasibility and impact of a short training course on frailty destined for primary health care professionals.European geriatric medicine · 2021Article
- Understanding consumer perceptions of frailty screening to inform knowledge translation and health service improvements.Age and ageing · 2021Article
- Frailty and Drug Safety at Older Ages.Drug safety · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMany tools exist to guide family physicians' impressions about frailty status of older adults, but no single tool, instrument, or set of criteria has emerged as most useful. The role of physicians' subjective impressions in frailty decisions has not been studied. This study explores how family physicians conceptualize frailty, and the factors that they consider when making subjective decisions about patients' frailty statuses.
methodsDescriptive qualitative study of family physicians who practice in a large urban academic family medicine center as they participated in one-on-one "think-aloud" interviews about the frailty status of their patients aged 80 years and over. Of 23 eligible family physicians, 18 shared their impressions about the frailty status of their older adult patients and the factors influencing their decisions. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.
resultsFour themes were identified, the first of which described how physicians conceptualized frailty as a spectrum and dynamic in nature, but also struggled to conceptualize it without a formal definition in place. The remaining three themes described factors considered before determining patients' frailty statuses: physical characteristics (age, weight, medical conditions), functional characteristics (physical, cognitive, social) and living conditions (level of independence, availability of supports, physical environment).
conclusionsFamily physicians viewed frailty as multifactorial, dynamic, and inclusive of functional and environmental factors. This conceptualization can be useful to make comprehensive and flexible evaluations of frailty status in conjunction with more objective frailty tools.
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