Frailty and nursing care demand in hospitalized older adults: a cross-sectional study

Objective: to analyze the relation between nursing care demand and frailty condition and markers in hospitalized older adults. Method: analytical cross-sectional study with a sample of 400 older adults. Data collection used a sociodemographic questionnaire, frailty phenotype tests, and a nursing care complexity assessment scale. Fisher’s exact test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Dunn’s test were applied, considering statistical significance for p≤0.05. Results: there was a predominance of pre-frail (48.7%), followed by frail (35.8%) and non-frail individuals(15.5%). Most frail older adults required high-dependency nursing care (44.8%). The minimum nursing care demand was 80.6% for non-frail, 60.5% for pre-frail, and 14% for frail older adults. Frail older adults required higher nursing care level than the non-frail in the areas: mental state, oxygenation, motility, ambulation, elimination, and therapy (p<0.001). There was association between minimal to intensive nursing care demand and reduced hand grip strength (p<0.001), reduced gait speed (p<0.001), fatigue/exhaustion (p<0.001), reduced physical activity level (p<0.001), and unintentional weight loss (p<0.019). Conclusion: higher nursing care demand was associated with worse frailty condition and markers. Frailty assessment is indispensable to trace specific needs and support nursing care planning.