Older patients are vulnerable to adverse hospital events related to frailty. SPICES, a common screening protocol to identify risk\nfactors in older patients, alerts nurses to initiate care plans to reduce the probability of patient harm.However, there is little published\nvalidating the association between SPICES and measures of frailty and adverse outcomes. This paper used data from a prospective\ncohort study on frailty among 174 older adult inpatients to validate SPICES. Almost all patients met one ormore SPICES criteria.The\nsum of SPICES was significantly correlated with age and other well-validated assessments for vulnerability, comorbid conditions,\nand depression. Individuals meeting two or more SPICES criteria had a risk of adverse hospital events three times greater than\nindividuals with either no or one criterion. Results suggest that as a screening tool used within 24 hours of admission, SPICES is\nboth valid and predictive of adverse events.
Loading....