Clinical frailty scale validation in vascular surgery patients. V1

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Clinical frailty scale validation in preoperative assessment of patients scheduled for vascular surgery

  • IRAS ID

    201173

  • Contact name

    Elke Kothmann

  • Contact email

    elke.kothmann@stees.nhs.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 11 months, 30 days

  • Research summary

    Older people can have a marked drop in the level of their health and their ability to carry out everyday tasks. This is referred to as being ‘frail’. Performing surgery on frail older adults may result in them needing to stay in hospital longer than expected, being discharged to an institution instead of going home, various problems following surgery or even death. The majority of patients who attend for a vascular surgical procedure are over the age of 65 years and may suffer with frailty.

    Being able to identify patients who are frail before surgery is important as it enables us to determine who is fit enough to benefit from surgery and where appropriate improve various aspects of their health. The aim of our study is to assess the feasibility of using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) as a method for assessing for frailty in patients who present for major vascular surgical procedures in the pre-assessment clinic. The CFS has not been previously used for this purpose and may offer advantages over existing tools such as the Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS).

    Patients who agree to take part in the study in the preassessment clinic will go through two stages

    Stage One - The research nurse/fellow, will assess frailty using the EFS before the preassessment consultation

    Stage Two – The consultant and the preassessment nurse will independently assess frailty using the CFS during the preassessment consultation

    The main aim is to assess how accurate is the CFS by comparing the CFS results from the consultant assessment with that of the well recognised EFS.

    Our secondary aim will be to compare the consultant and preassessment nurse’s CFS results to determine if there are any variation between the scores.

  • REC name

    Wales REC 7

  • REC reference

    16/WA/0160

  • Date of REC Opinion

    23 Jun 2016

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion