PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Alexandra Legge AU - Susan Kirkland AU - Kenneth Rockwood AU - Pantelis Andreou AU - Sang-Cheol Bae AU - Caroline Gordon AU - Juanita Romero-Diaz AU - Jorge Sanchez-Guerrero AU - Daniel J. Wallace AU - Sasha Bernatsky AU - Ann E. Clarke AU - Joan T. Merrill AU - Ellen M. Ginzler AU - Paul Fortin AU - Dafna D. Gladman AU - Murray B. Urowitz AU - Ian N. Bruce AU - David A. Isenberg AU - Anisur Rahman AU - Graciela S. Alarcón AU - Michelle Petri AU - Munther A. Khamashta AU - M.A. Dooley AU - Rosalind Ramsey-Goldman AU - Susan Manzi AU - Asad A. Zoma AU - Cynthia Aranow AU - Meggan Mackay AU - Guillermo Ruiz-Irastorza AU - S. Sam Lim AU - Murat Inanc AU - Ronald F. van Vollenhoven AU - Andreas Jonsen AU - Ola Nived AU - Manuel Ramos-Casals AU - Diane L. Kamen AU - Kenneth C. Kalunian AU - Soren Jacobsen AU - Christine A. Peschken AU - Anca Askanase AU - John G. Hanly TI - Construction of a Frailty Index as a Novel Health Measure in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus AID - 10.3899/jrheum.181338 DP - 2019 Apr 15 TA - The Journal of Rheumatology PG - jrheum.181338 4099 - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2019/08/08/jrheum.181338.short 4100 - http://www.jrheum.org/content/early/2019/08/08/jrheum.181338.full AB - Objective To construct a Frailty Index (FI) as a measure of vulnerability to adverse outcomes among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), using data from the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) inception cohort. Methods The SLICC inception cohort consists of recently diagnosed patients with SLE followed annually with clinical and laboratory assessments. For this analysis, the baseline visit was defined as the first study visit at which sufficient information was available for construction of an FI. Following a standard procedure, variables from the SLICC database were evaluated as potential health deficits. Selected health deficits were then used to generate a SLICC-FI. The prevalence of frailty in the baseline dataset was evaluated using established cutpoints for FI values. Results The 1683 patients with SLE (92.1% of the overall cohort) eligible for inclusion in the baseline dataset were mostly female (89%) with mean (SD) age 35.7 (13.4) years and mean (SD) disease duration 18.8 (15.7) months at baseline. Of 222 variables, 48 met criteria for inclusion in the SLICC-FI. Mean (SD) SLICC-FI was 0.17 (0.08) with a range from 0 to 0.51. At baseline, 27.1% (95% CI 25.0–29.2) of patients were classified as frail, based on SLICC-FI values > 0.21. Conclusion The SLICC inception cohort permits feasible construction of an FI for use in patients with SLE. Even in a relatively young cohort of patients with SLE, frailty was common. The SLICC-FI may be a useful tool for identifying patients with SLE who are most vulnerable to adverse outcomes, but validation of this index is required prior to its use.