Independent factors associated with long-term functional outcomes in patients with a proximal femoral fracture: A systematic review

The current understanding of prognostic factors of functional recovery after a proximal femoral fracture is limited, and enhancements could improve the prognostic accuracy and target subgroups for additional care strategies. This systematic review aims to identify all studied factors with an independent prognostic value for the long-term functional recovery of patients with a proximal femoral fracture. Observational studies with multivariate analyses on prognostic factors of long-term functional outcome after proximal femoral fractures were obtained through an electronic search performed on November 9, 2018. In the 31 included articles, thirteen prognostic factors were studied by at least two independent studies and an additional ten by only one study. Age, comorbidity, functionality and cognition were factors for which the majority of studies indicated a significant effect. The majority of studies which included sex as a factor found no significant effect. The level of evidence for the remaining factors was deemed too low to be conclusive on their relevance for long-term functional outcome. The identified factors showed overlap with prognostic factors of short-term functional outcomes and mortality. The validity and applicability of prognostic models based on these factors may be of interest for future research.