Frailty and affective disorders throughout adult life: A 5‐year follow‐up of the Lifelines Cohort Study

Background Frailty is an important concept for risk stratification in clinical practice, but it is hardly acknowledged at all in mental healthcare settings. This paper aims to assess the impact of frailty on the course of depression and anxiety, and the impact of these affective disorders on the course of frailty. Methods Lifelines, a prospective population‐based cohort study, evaluated 167,729 people living in the northern Netherlands. Frailty was based on the deficit accumulation model, which resulted in a 60‐item frailty index (FI) at baseline and a 35‐item FI at baseline and 5‐year follow‐up. Current depressive and anxiety disorders were assessed with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview according to DSM‐IV criteria. Bidirectional associations between frailty and affective disorders were investigated using separate multivariable regression analyses in younger (