Association between self-rated health and frailty in elderly

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between frailty and self-rated health in community-dwelling elderly. METHODS: 79 male and female subjects, aged 65 years or older, living in Belo Horizonte-MG, volunteered for the study. It was administered "rede Fibra" questionnaire from December 2008 to may 2009, by interviewers previously trained. Self-rated health was measured through five questions: self-rated general health, health care, health compared to people with same age, actual health compared to last year and activity level compared to last year. Frailty criteria was the five items of frailty phenotype. Statistic analyses was performed using Kruskal Wallis and chi-squared, with \u3b1 = 0.05. RESULTS: Sample was composed of 78% female and 28% male with mean age 75.15 ± 6.77 years. Prevalence of frailty was 22% frail, 48% pre-frail and 30% not frail. There was significant statistic association between questions about health compared to people with same age and actual health compared to last year and frailty profile. Only the last question was significant to identify frail elderly with answer "worst health". CONCLUSIONS: Results suggested significant association (p < 0,03) between self-rated health and frailty when evaluated by the question: "Compared to last year, how do you consider your health now?" And the proportion of answers "worst" was higher in the frail elderly group.