O-40 Self-Rated health as a predictor of short to long- term survival in older Afro-Caribbeans hospitalised via the emergency department
Author(s):
M Dramé, L Godaert
Year of Presentation:
2026
Objective: To determine whether self-rated health (SRH) is
an independent predictor for Survival at different timepoints
in older Afro-Caribbean patients hospitalised for an acute
condition.
Methods: A prospective cohort of patients were recruited from the University Hospitals of Martinique Acute Care for Elders Unit. Patients aged 75 years or older and hospitalised for an acute condition were eligible. The outcome was time to death within the 3-year follow-up. SRH was the explanatory variable of interest. Cox’s Proportional Hazards model was used to estimate the relationship between SRH and Survival.
Results: The 223 patients included in the study were aged 85.1 ± 5.5 years. In total, 123 patients reported “very good to good” health, and 100 “medium to very poor” health. Crude survival rates at 6 weeks, 6 months, 1, 2 and 3 years were 14.8%, 30.5%, 34.8%, 48.4%, and 57.0%, respectively. By multivariate analysis, SRH reached significant relationship for all survival timepoints. The adjusted hazard ratios for subjects who perceived their health as medium, poor or very poor was 1.6 to 2.7 times greater than that of subjects who reported good or very good health.
Conclusion: Although some uncertainty remains regarding the exact components that influence SRH, our study suggests that SRH is an independent prognostic factor for survival in a population of older Afro-Caribbean patients admitted to acute care. SRH is easy to record at admission, and a SRH of fair to very poor SRH should alert clinicians to the need to orient the patient towards geriatric care to undergo multidimensional geriatric assessment.