The burden of non-disabled frailty and its associated factors among older adults in Bangladesh

Sabuj Kanti Mistry; A R M Mehrab Ali; Uday Narayan Yadav; Saruna Ghimire; Afsana Anwar; Md Nazmul Huda; Fouzia Khanam; Rashidul Alam Mahumud; Ateeb Ahmad Parray; Shovon Bhattacharjee; David Lim; Mark Fort Harris

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0294889

The burden of non-disabled frailty and its associated factors among older adults in Bangladesh

PLoS One. 2023 Nov 28;18(11):e0294889. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294889. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sabuj Kanti Mistry^{1

2

3}, A R M Mehrab Ali¹, Uday Narayan Yadav^{2

4}, Saruna Ghimire⁵, Afsana Anwar⁶, Md Nazmul Huda^{1

7}, Fouzia Khanam⁸, Rashidul Alam Mahumud⁹, Ateeb Ahmad Parray¹⁰, Shovon Bhattacharjee¹¹, David Lim¹², Mark Fort Harris¹³

Affiliations

¹ ARCED Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
² School of Population Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
³ Department of Public Health, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁴ National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
⁵ Department of Sociology and Gerontology and Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, OH, United States of America.
⁶ Rohingya Response Crisis, World Vision Bangladesh, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
⁷ Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, School of Clinical Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
⁸ Department of Public Health, North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
⁹ NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
¹⁰ Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States of America.
¹¹ Biosecurity Program, The Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
¹² University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia.
¹³ Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Abstract

Objective: The present study aims to measure the prevalence of non-disabled frailty and its associated factors among Bangladeshi older adults.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted during September and October 2021 among 1,045 Bangladeshi older adults (≥60 years). Telephone interviews, using a semi-structured questionnaire, were undertaken to collect data on participants' characteristics and level of frailty. The non-disabled frailty was measured using the 'Frail Non-Disabled (FiND)' questionnaire. A multinomial logistic regression model assessed the factors associated with frailty among the participants.

Results: Around a quarter of the participants (24.8%) were frail. The multinomial regression analysis showed that older participants aged ≥80 years (RRR = 3.23, 95% CI: 1.41-7.37) were more likely to be frail compared to participants aged 60-69 years. Likewise, the participants living in a large family with ≥4 members (RRR = 1.39, 95% CI: 1.01-1.92) were more likely to be frail compared to those living in smaller families. Also, participants having memory or concentration problems (RRR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.12-2.17) were more likely to be frail compared to those who were not suffering from these problems. Moreover, participants whose family members were non-responsive to their day-to-day assistance (RRR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.06-2.03) were more likely to be frail compared to those whose family members were responsive. Furthermore, participants who were feeling lonely (RRR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.07-1.98) were more likely to be frail than their counterparts who were not feeling lonely.

Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest developing tailored interventions to address the burden of frailty among the older populations in Bangladesh. In particular, providing long-term care and health promotion activities can be of value in preventing frailty and reducing adverse health outcomes among this vulnerable population group.

Copyright: © 2023 Mistry et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Aged
Bangladesh / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Frail Elderly
Frailty* / epidemiology
Geriatric Assessment
Humans
Independent Living

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.