BMJ : British medical journal
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Objectives To derive and validate a risk prediction equation to estimate the short term risk of death, and to develop a classification method for frailty based on risk of death and risk of unplanned hospital admission. Design Prospective open cohort study. Participants Routinely collected data from 1436 general practices contributing data to QResearch in England between 2012 and 2016. 1079 practices were used to develop the scores and a separate set of 357 practices to validate the scores. 1.47 million patients aged 65-100 years were in the derivation cohort and 0.50 million patients in the validation cohort. ⋯ Conclusions We have developed new equations to predict the short term risk of death in men and women aged 65 or more, taking account of demographic, social, and clinical variables. The equations had good performance on a separate validation cohort. The QMortality equations can be used in conjunction with the QAdmissions equations, to classify patients into four frailty groups (known as QFrailty categories) to enable patients to be identified for further assessment or interventions.