Evaluation of Agreement Among Frailty Assessment Tools in Head and Neck Surgery

Objective: To evaluate intertest agreement among hand grip strength (HGS), the modified Frailty Index (mFI), and the Edmonton Frail Scale (EFS) in patients presenting for presurgical assessment in a head and neck surgery clinic.

Study design: Prospective observational study.

Setting: Academic tertiary medical center.

Methods: Prospective data relating to 3 frailty measurements were collected for 96 consecutive adults presenting for presurgical counseling at a single high-volume head and neck surgical oncology clinic. Frailty was determined with previously validated thresholds for the mFI (≥3) and EFS (>7). The highest of 2 HGS measurements performed for the dominant hand was used to determine frail status based on previously validated sex- and body mass index-specific thresholds. Baseline characteristics were identified to determine the association of such variables to each tool. Agreement among frailty assessment tools was examined.

Results: The frequency of frailty in the cohort varied among tools, ranging from 29.2% (28/96) for HGS to 12.5% (12/96) for the mFI and 4.2% (4/96) for the EFS. The overall agreement among the 3 frailty tools via the Fleiss index was poor (kappa, 0.088; 95% CI, -0.028 to 0.203).

Conclusion: Assessment of frailty is complex, and established frailty assessment tools may not agree on which patients are frail. When assessing a patient as frail, clinicians must be vigilant to the influence of frailty assessment tools on such determinations, which may contribute critical input during shared decision making for patients considering head and neck surgery or nonsurgical alternatives.