Older patients are vulnerable to adverse hospital events related to frailty. SPICES, a common screening protocol to identify risk factors in older patients, alerts nurses to initiate care plans to reduce the probability of patient harm. However, there is little published validating the association between SPICES and measures of frailty and adverse outcomes. This paper used data from a prospective cohort study on frailty among 174 older adult inpatients to validate SPICES. Almost all patients met one or more SPICES criteria. The sum of SPICES was significantly correlated with age and other well-validated assessments for vulnerability, comorbid conditions, and depression. Individuals meeting two or more SPICES criteria had a risk of adverse hospital events three times greater than individuals with either no or one criterion. Results suggest that as a screening tool used within 24 hours of admission, SPICES is both valid and predictive of adverse events.
Older adult inpatients admitted to acute hospital are particularly vulnerable to adverse hospital events associated with factors related to frailty [
SPICES is an acronym for a brief protocol for multidimensional assessment to identify risk factors related to caring for older adults: skin integrity; problems eating; incontinence;
As part of a hospital-wide effort to improve efficiency and effectiveness of care, an interprofessional workgroup was assembled to focus on the quality and safety of patient care for frail older adults. Prior to designing an intervention, the group conducted a prospective cohort study of older adults admitted during the month of September, 2010. The sample consisted of 214 Medicare patients. The study aimed to (1) demonstrate the relevance, nature, and scope of potential quality improvement efforts within this population, (2) develop an interprofessional risk assessment tool for patients with a frailty phenotype early in admission, and (3) characterize gaps in processes and timeliness of frailty care and the impact on patient safety and clinical outcomes. The QI effort and the results of the prospective cohort study are reported elsewhere [
The data from the prospective cohort study were used secondarily for the current study of SPICES. We focused on the subsample of 174 patients aged 65 or older. SPICES is typically scored by the registered nurse assigned to the patient or by a specially trained geriatric resource nurse [
Description of SPICES scoring criteria and numbers positive in the sample (
SPICES element | Coding criteria | Number positive | Percent positive |
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Skin integrity | Documented presence of a pressure ulcer on admission |
72 | 41.4% |
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Problems eating | Katz Index of ADL [ |
79 | 45.4% |
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Incontinence | Katz Index of ADL bowel or bladder incontinence | 69 | 39.7% |
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Confusion | Brief Interview for Mental Status (BIMS) questionnaire [ |
73 | 42.0% |
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Evidence of falls | Admitting nurse’s rating of the Morse Falls Risk Scale, score ≥45 | 117 | 67.2% |
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Sleep disturbance | Admitting nurse’s screen for airway compromise | 4 | 2.3% |
To establish the validity of the SPICES assessment, it was necessary to have other measures of vulnerability with known psychometric properties that are related to risk for adverse outcomes. In our prospective cohort study we collected assessments that were then used secondarily to score SPICES and other assessments that were not used to score SPICES. The current validation analyses used only those scales and assessments that were not included in the scoring of SPICES.
Two scales collected concurrently, but not used to calculate SPICES, were used to establish criterion validity. The Vulnerable Elders Survey-13 (VES-13) is a survey, validated among community-residing older adults, that has been shown to identify at-risk populations in ambulatory and hospital settings [
Construct validity was tested with other measures. Just as advancing age is generally associated with decreasing independence in function of activities of daily activity, we anticipated that SPICES would be positively associated with age. Burden of chronic disease is also associated with depression [
Predictive validity was evaluated by examining the relationship of SPICES screening scores to outcome variations consistent with greater vulnerability. In the original prospective cohort study protocol, after the admission assessment, patients were followed to document adverse drug reactions, procedural complications, hospital-acquired infections, falls, the development of hospital acquired pressure ulcers, transfers to higher levels of care (e.g., from general medical surgical units to intensive care units), death, total hospital length of stay of one week or longer, and readmission within 30 days after discharge.
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for all analyses. The number of SPICES criteria identified as positive was tested with concurrent and outcome measures using simple chi-square and nonparametric spearman Rho correlation statistics. The use of SPICES as a screening tool was evaluated using a SPICES cut-off criterion and examining the relative risk of cooccurrence of other risk factors and adverse hospital outcomes.
The patients included in this analysis (
The number and percent of the sample with positive results on each SPICES element are reported in Table
Distribution of total SPICES identified for patients (
Number of SPICES+ | Frequency | Percent | Cumulative percent |
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0 | 20 | 11.5 | 11.5 |
1 | 45 | 25.9 | 37.4 |
2 | 33 | 19.0 | 56.3 |
3 | 31 | 17.8 | 74.1 |
4 | 16 | 9.2 | 83.3 |
5 | 28 | 16.1 | 99.4 |
6 | 1 | 0.6 | 100.0 |
Total SPICES was significantly correlated with the criterion variables, VES-13 total score (
Among this acute hospital patient sample, only 134 patients (77.0%) were able to respond to the VES-13 questions. Of the 40 patients with missing VES-13 data, 29 (72.5%) had four or more positive SPICES criteria and 37 (92.5%) met two or more of the SPICES criteria. Among the 31 patients who did not complete the PHQ-2 depression screen, 27 (87.1%) had four or more positive SPICES criteria and 29 (93.5%) had two or more positive SPICES.
For the remainder of analyses, to establish the validity of SPICES as a screening criterion for vulnerability and to examine the association of SPICES to relatively rare adverse hospital outcomes, we dichotomized the distribution 0-1 versus 2 or more SPICES positive (SPICES2+). This split placed 37.4% of the sample in the lower risk category and 62.6% in the higher risk category.
Table
Odds associated with positive frailty screen and selected validation measures (
Validation measure | Odds ratio | 95% Confidence interval |
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Concurrent—criterion validity | |||
Vulnerable Elders Survey-13 frail >3 ( |
11.077** | 4.542, 27.013 | <0.001 |
Charlson Comorbidity Index ≥2 ( |
3.171** | 1.600, 6.283 | 0.001 |
Charlson Comorbidity Index ≥4 ( |
2.322** | 1.176, 4.582 | 0.001 |
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Concurrent—construct validity | |||
Age ≥ 80 years ( |
4.345** | 2.240, 8.430 | <0.001 |
PHQ-2 screening ≥2 positive for depression ( |
2.794** | 1.364, 5.723 | 0.006 |
Admitted from a nursing home ( |
1.235** | 1.126, 1.355 | <0.001 |
Prior hospital admission within 30 days ( |
1.661 | 0.806, 3.382 | 0.220 |
2+ prior admissions within 6 months ( |
1.253 | 0.592, 2.654 | 0.580 |
4+ active comorbid diagnoses, 1+ not controlled ( |
2.794** | 1.405, 5.557 | 0.004 |
≥7 prescription medications present on admission ( |
2.916** | 1.505, 5.649 | 0.004 |
Female gender ( |
1.851 | 0.911, 3.456 | 0.058 |
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Predictive validity | |||
Expired during admission ( |
1.028 | 0.996, 1.061 | 0.294 |
Any hospital adverse event* ( |
3.041** | 1.527, 6.054 | 0.001 |
Readmission within 30 days ( |
1.235 | 0.580, 2.627 | 0.705 |
There was strong agreement of risk as identified by SPICES2+ with the VES-13 criterion score for vulnerability (OR = 11.08, 95% CI = 4.542, 27.013,
Individual hospital adverse outcomes were uncommon to rare events (see Table
Definitions of vulnerability in older adult patients vary widely both in conceptualization and application [
We found strong evidence that SPICES is related to other measures of frailty and vulnerability. Direct assessment of the VES-13 scale among the sample of Medicare patients aged 65 or older was conducted at the same time as other SPICES criteria were documented. The correlation between the sum of SPICES and the VES-13 score was moderately high (Rho = 0.559). Sum of SPICES was also significantly associated with the Charlson Comorbidity Index, a measure of the burden of acute and chronic disease that is associated with risk of mortality. Age in years and a commonly used PHQ-2 screening tool for depression were also significantly related to the sum of SPICES criteria positive.
Frail hospitalized adults in this study were frequently unable to respond to the more complex VES-13 and PHQ-2 scales and might have been missed in screening if these scales were used to identify vulnerability. SPICES, on the other hand, can be scored for all inpatients and may, therefore, more completely screen acutely ill inpatients for frailty and/or vulnerability.
An additional strength of SPICES is that the screening elements are commonly assessed by bedside nurse in the routine admission assessment. The elements, recorded in documentation flow sheets in the electronic health record, could be electronically summarized and be used to trigger alerts or best practice guidelines.
In this sample of Medicare patients, individuals meeting two or more SPICES criteria had a risk of experiencing adverse events that were three times greater than individuals meeting none or one of these criteria. Less evident was the relationship of SPICES with specific adverse hospital outcomes. This finding may be explained, in part, by the observation that although 38.5% (67/174) of patients experienced at least one adverse event, the median incidence of any single events was 2.3%. A larger sample would be needed to establish the relative strengths of associations between SPICES criteria and specific adverse events. Individual risks may also be influenced by safety interventions and other factors that may change over time and differ among institutions. The main point that can be appreciated from these results is the potential utility of SPICES criteria for identifying a population at significant risk for adverse events within 24 hours of admission.
Patient care assessments are foundational in the determination of patient risks and the creation of effective interprofessional plans of care to assure the delivery of safe, quality, efficient patient care. Nursing admission assessments promote identification of patient risks and are important to the identification of patient care needs. Referrals to other patient care team members are part of the plan for patient care and essential to the achievement of positive patient outcomes. The finding of longer length of stay among patients with two or more SPICES positive in this study may be an effect associated with work flow and processes associated with hospital consultations and interventions requested to address and reduce risks for adverse outcomes, such as physical, occupational, and speech therapies, wound care, nutrition services, or social work. The SPICES may be a useful screening to trigger a comprehensive interprofessional care team response to further investigate patient risks and organize a prompt care plan response that might serve to both reduce length of stay and reduce the risk of adverse hospital outcomes.
Patients were a convenience sample, not a random sample, so generalizability is limited. A larger study with a design that would ensure representativeness could add to the evidence. Scoring of SPICES from nursing documentations was limited by the single source of information on the element of sleep disturbance—admitting nurse’s documentation of airway compromise. However, the absence of more complete documentation on this one element does not alter the findings, and one might expect that addition of a more complete assessment of sleep would only enhance the robustness of the SPICES score.
SPICES criteria constitute a valid assessment for screening for risks associated with adverse hospital outcomes. SPICES is strongly related to a screening assessment developed for community-residing older adults (VES-13) but more easily completed than the VES-13 by registered nurses as part of a hospital admission assessment. Most components of SPICES are already included in the admission nursing assessment and missing elements can easily be added. Use of SPICES as a screening protocol may serve to identify patient care needs for additional interventions by physicians, social workers, therapists, dieticians, pharmacists, and other members of the health care team.
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.