NCT06621290

Patient Experience of CFS-assessment in the ED

Completed Last updated 12 November 2024

What this trial tests

trial testing Semi-structured interviews in Frailty in Aging in 21 participants. Completed in 5 November 2024.

Timeline

30 September 2024

Primary endpoint
5 November 2024

5 November 2024

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	University Hospital, Linkoeping
Status	Completed
Study type	OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment	21
Start date	30 September 2024
Primary completion	5 November 2024
Estimated completion	5 November 2024
Sites	1 location across Sweden

Drugs / interventions tested

• Semi-structured interviews

Conditions studied

• Frailty in Aging — all drugs for Frailty in Aging →
• Emergency Department Visit — all drugs for Emergency Department Visit →
• Patient Experience — all drugs for Patient Experience →
• Qualitative Research — all drugs for Qualitative Research →

Sponsor

University Hospital, Linkoeping

Who can join

65 and older, any sex, with Frailty in Aging or Emergency Department Visit. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

An increasingly common subject of interest among emergency care research is frailty, which is commonly described as a decline in several inter-related physiological systems, in addition to an increased vulnerability to stressors. To increase emergency care staffs ability to intervene appropriately in patients who need interventions to improve their outcomes, geriatric emergency care guidelines include recommendations to identify frailty during the emergency department (ED) visit. However, the patients´ experience of frailty assessment in general is sparsely investigated, and such studies within the ED context are even more limited.

It is conceivable that the patients experience of a frailty assessment may differ depending on several different factors, including which assessment tool is used.

A large number of assessment tools have been developed to help identify frailty, of which the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is one of the most widely used. The CFS has been validated for persons ≥65 years of age and has been evaluated for validity, reliability and feasibility in an ED-setting. The CFS consists of pictograms combined with clinical descriptions of a persons level of functioning in daily life and cognitive status. Hence, to determine the CFS-score, the healthcare staff needs to ask the patient about their physical activity and function level regarding instrumental and personal activities of daily living (eg, banking, shopping, medication management, housekeeping, dressing and hygiene matters).

Since the different questions are often not directly linked to the patients acute illness, but touch on personal subjects like the persons abilities and life situation, it is desirable to understand the patients experience of such an assessment in order to optimise the approach from a patient perspective. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that focus on how patients experience being assessed with CFS during their ED-visit.

The aim of this study is therefore to inform a model to guide emergency department staff in assessing frailty with CFS, directed by the perspective from patients along the frailty trajectory. Specifically, our question is:

\- How do older ED-patients experience the frailty assessment with the CFS?

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Being screened for frailty in the emergency department: the voice of patients in an exploratory qualitative study.
   Hörlin E, Ekermo D, Wilhelms D, Eldh AC. · · 2026 · cited 2× · PMID 41540358 · DOI 10.1186/s12877-026-06990-1