Perioperative Frailty and Postoperative Complications: a Prospective Study

The presence of frailty is associated with a high risk of complications in the perioperative period, increasing morbidity and mortality, hospital stay, and loss of quality of life. This is a prospective observational study in which an evaluation of frailty was performed in patients older than 65 years old who undergo scheduled and urgent surgery, including 138 patients. The main objective is to evaluate the prevalence of frailty in patients older than 65 years undergoing surgery and its association with postoperative mortality. The secondary objectives were the following: to assess the association between frailty and increased days of hospital stay, hospital readmission, and unexpected admission to ICU areas; to assess whether patients with greater frailty suffer a greater loss of postoperative functional independence; to evaluate type and frequency of complications; and to evaluate which scale is most useful to implement in the perioperative setting (Frailty Clinical Scale, Edmonton frailty test, Barthel Index, Mini-mental test, Charlson Index). Considering that the estimated percentage of frailty is 10%, with a 95% confidence interval and a 5% error margin, 138 patients are needed to accurately estimate the prevalence of frailty in the population.