Background

Frailty reduces independence, quality of life and psychological well-being. Frailty also increases the risk of geriatric syndromes, addictions, hospitalization, institutionalization, disability and mortality in the oldest population of every society.

Objectives

The main aim of this research was the adaptation and validation of the SHARE -FI questionnaire, identifying the risk of frailty syndrome in a group of people over 60 years of age in Poland. Another aim was to create Polish calculators for the SHARE -FI questionnaire for females and males separately.

Material and methods

Testing with the SHARE -FI questionnaire was performed on 300 people over 60 years of age in Poland. The study group consisted of 148 females and 152 males, including 151 hospital and 149 primary care patients. The mean age was 75.2.

Results

Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of the SHARE -FI instrument ranged from 0.73 to 0.83, and item-total correlation ranged from 0.11 to 0.91. The risk of frailty syndrome was significantly higher in the group of hospital patients than in the group of primary care patients (p < 0.001). The average score on the IADL scale was 23.09 for the study group, while the GDS score indicated no depression in 203 patients and mild depression in 97 patients.

Conclusions

The research results indicated that the Polish version of the SHARE -FI questionnaire is characterized by high internal consistency and reliability and may be recommended for the screening frailty risk among people above 60 years of age for females and males, as well as in both primary care and hospital settings.