Core requirements of frailty screening in the emergency department: an international Delphi consensus study.

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"Declaration of Sources of Funding None."

"Before this Delphi study, a systematic review was conducted to identify published frailty screening instruments used in ED (PROSPERO trial registration number CRD42020216780) []. The questions, items and other details along with their psychometric and clinimetric properties (target sample, administration time, etc.) were directly extracted as text. Statements for Round 1 were subsequently synthesised from these data by reflexive thematic analysis. Reflexive thematic analysis is an easily accessible and theoretically flexible interpretative approach to qualitative data analysis that facilitates the identification and analysis of patterns or themes in a given dataset []. Through the reflexive approach, themes are not predefined in order to find codes []. Themes are produced by organising codes around a central organising concept using the six-stage analytical process defined by Braun and Clarke []. From this process, a list of statements was generated based on the question: ‘What are the core requirements of frailty screening in the emergency department?’. Data extracted from the included studies were analysed by two authors (EM, RO’C), before being reviewed and confirmed by an external expert (SC). Following this feedback, further synthesis included merging the most common codes and grouping themes under major categories, including adaptations of relevant existing research on frailty variables and domains by Soong, Van Oostrom and Carpenter, respectively [, , ]. The reflexive thematic analysis resulted in an initial list of 56 statements that were incorporated into the first round of the e-Delphi survey, according to three main themes (categories) illustrated in a concept map in the . In summary, the themes were grouped as follows:"