CLINICAL STUDY OF RISK FACTORS OF FRAILTY IN ELDERLY T2DM PATIENTS IN THE PHYSICAL EXAMINATION CENTER

Xiaoying Sun^{1, 2}, Zhishui Wu³, Qing Cui¹, Xiaolu Ye¹, Chunping Chen^{3, *}, Jingjuan Xu^{3, *}

¹School of Nursing, Soochow University, Soochow, 215000, PR.China - ²Department of Emergency, Qinghai Provincial People's Hospital, Xining, 810007, PR.China - ³Department of Health Examination, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou, 213003, PR.China

Objective: To investigate the risk factors of frailty in elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in the physical examination center. 

Methods: Clinical data of 592 elderly T2DM patients who came to our hospital for physical examination from January 2018 to May 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. They were grouped by the presence of frailty, and the risk factors of frailty in elderly T2DM patients in the physical ex-amination center were analyzed using univariate and univariate methods. 

Results: Among the 592 patients included in this study, 274 showed frailty, with an incidence of 46.28%. The average score of TFI was (5.29±2.60), of which the average scores of physical, psycho-logical and social frailty were (2.82±1.90), (1.42±0.86) and (1.44±0.85) respectively. The results of univariate analysis showed that age, education level, marital status, reimbursement type of medical insurance, smoking, Insulin therapy, concomitant drugs, complication, underlying disease, BMI, FBG, HbA1c and self-management level were related to the frailty of elderly T2DM patients in the physical examination center (P<0.05). The results of multiple linear regression model analysis showed that multiple underlying diseases, poor self-management level, HbA1c ≥8.5%, primary school or below, concomitant drugs ≥5 and smoking were independent risk factors of frailty in elderly T2DM patients in the physical examination center. 

Conclusion: It is common for elderly T2DM patients in the physical examination center to be complicated by frailty, which may be closely related to underlying diseases, self-management level, HbA1c level, education level, concomitant drugs and smoking.