Síndrome da fragilidade no idoso comunitário com osteoartrite

objective: to characterize and compare community-dwelling elderly with knee and/or hip osteoarthritis (oa), focusing on the frailty syndrome. method: cross-sectional study of the elderly with knee and/or hip oa, using a subsample from the study of frailty in the brazilian elderly (fibra), assessing the following: sociodemographic characteristics, comorbidity, medications, depression, anthropomorphic data, falls, pain, stiffness, physical function, and frailty. the subjective assessment of health was also performed. results: the final sample comprised 58 elderly (mean age, 74 ± 5.5 years) as follows: 17 (29.31%) non-frail, 28 (48.28%) pre-frail, and 13 (22.41%) frail. the frail elderly received more medications than the non-frail ones (7.00 ± 2.00 and 4.00 ± 2.00, respectively; p = 0.001). the mean body mass index was lower in the non-frail elderly as compared with those of the pre-frail and frail ones (27.00 ± 4.50 kg/m2, 30.00 ± 4.00 kg/m2, and 34.00 ± 8.00 kg/m2, respectively; p = 0.018). depression was more prevalent in the frail group. compared to the previous year, there was a difference in the health status of the groups as follows: 64.3% of the pre-frail elderly and 46.2% of the frail ones believed their health deteriorated, and 52.9% of the non-frail elderly considered that their health status remained unchanged (p = 0.016). when comparing the current physical activity levels with those of the previous year, the pre-frail and frail elderly reported a worsening (p = 0.010). regarding physical function and fall-related self-efficacy, the frail elderly were worse than the others (p = 0.023 and 0.017, respectively). there were no significant differences between the groups for the remaining items analyzed. conclusion: the elderly with oa and frailty use more medications, are more obese and depressed, have a poorer perception of their own health and of their level of activity as compared with that of the previous year, have a worse fall-related self-efficacy, and