Developing Consensus on Social Frailty Assessment in Older People: A Delphi Study

NELGYN TENNYSON, Murdoch University And Edith Cowan University
Professor Loretta Baldassar, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Dr Manonita Ghosh, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Asso/Prof Ivalyo Vassilev, Southhampton University
Asso/Prof Rosemary Saunders, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Dr Trish Cain, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Dr Eben Afrifa-Yamoah, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Dr Hien Nguyen, EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

The growing recognition of social frailty as a key dimension of overall frailty in older adults highlights the need for a standardised assessment tool. This study aimed to identify the key components that assess social frailty in elderly by establishing expert consensus. Using a, four-phase Delphi method to establish consensus among global experts who were : clinicians and with lived experience. This involved an extensive literature review followed by consultation with experts for item generation and then followed by two rounds of follow up surveys to confirm their consensus on the items proposed. 70 percent consensus across the two waves of survey along with z score values and Inter-rater reliability were used to identify the assessment items before being classified as per themes identified in the literature. The study engaged over 200 experts across Australia and few from other nations. 118 items were shared with the experts among with 56 received consensus through analysis across 6 different domains classified according to the literature. These key indicators are expected to researchers and clinicians help measure social frailty in elderly when designing, evaluating, and implementing interventions to prevent and/or to improve frailty.

Keywords: Population Ageing, Social network methods

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