Frailty as a predictor of short- and long-term mortality in critically ill older medical patients.

Abstract Purpose Frailty is a common condition among critically ill patients. Usually evaluated in a mixed population of medical, cardiac and surgical patients, we aimed to assess the impact of frailty on short- and long-term mortality exclusively in critically ill older medical patients. Materials and methods We included 285 patients aged≥70 years admitted to ICU (2009–2017). Comorbidities, severity scores, treatment intensity and complications were recorded. Pre-hospital frailty, measured by Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), was defined as a score ≥ 5 according to this scale. Results Prevalence of frailty (CFS ≥ 5) of 18.6%. Frail patients were more likely to be female (64.2% vs. 35.6%, p  Conclusions Frailty (CFS ≥ 5) was independently associated with short- and long-term mortality in older patients admitted to ICU exclusively due to a medical reason.