COVID-19 AND ASSOCIATIONS WITH FRAILTY AND MULTIMORBIDITY: A PROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF UK BIOBANK PARTICIPANTS...British Geriatrics Society Autumn Meeting, November 25-27 2020 (Virtual)

Introduction: Frailty and multimorbidity have been suggested as risk factors for severe COVID-19 disease We therefore investigated whether frailty and multimorbidity were associated with risk of hospitalisation with COVID-19 in the UK Biobank Method 502,640 participants aged 40–69 years at baseline (54–79 years at COVID-19 testing) were recruited across UK 2006–10 A modified assessment of frailty using Fried’s classification was generated from baseline data COVID-19 test results (England) were available 16/03/2020–01/06/2020, mostly taken in hospital settings Logistic regression was used to discern associations between frailty, multimorbidity and COVID-19 diagnoses, adjusting for sex, age, BMI, ethnicity, education, smoking and number of comorbidity groupings, comparing COVID-19 positive, COVID-19 negative and non-tested groups Results: 4,510 participants were tested for COVID-19 (positive=1,326, negative= 3,184) 497,996 participants were not tested Compared to the non-tested group, after adjustment, COVID-19 positive participants were more likely to be frail (OR=1 4 [95%CI=1 1, 1 8]), report slow walking speed (OR=1 3 [1 1, 1 6]), report two or more falls in the past year (OR=1 3 [1 0, 1 5]) and be multimorbid (≥4 comorbidity groupings vs 0–1: OR=1 9 [1 5, 2 3]) However, similar strength of associations were apparent when comparing COVID-19 negative and non-tested groups Furthermore, frailty and multimorbidity were not associated with COVID-19 diagnoses, when comparing COVID- 19 positive and COVID-19 negative participants Conclusions: Frailty and multimorbidity do not appear to aid risk stratification, in terms of a positive versus negative results of COVID-19 testing Investigation of the prognostic value of these markers for adverse clinical sequelae following COVID-19 disease is urgently needed