Abstract:Objective To investigate the current status of frailty syndrome and its influencing factors in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods Convenience sampling was applied to recruit 306 hospitalized elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who received treatment in Department of Endocrinology, Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The general information questionnaire was used to collect the patients’ sociodemographic data, lifestyle, and clinical data. The Fried Frailty Phenotype was administered to assess the frailty status of the patients. The Mini Nutritional Assessment Short-Form (MNA-SF) was administered to assess the patients’ nutritional status. The Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) was administered to assess the patients’ comorbid conditions. Results The reported rate of frailty was 54.58% (167/306) among the participants, 21.24% (65/306) reported pre-frailty, and 24.18% (74/306) reported no frailty. Grip weakness, low physical activity, and slow walking speed were the main frailty problems. The diabetic patients with the three different frailty indicators differed significantly in terms of age, the number of diabetic complications, proportion of patients with oral biguanidine hypoglycemic drugs, hemoglobin level, C-reactive protein level, MNA-SF score, BMI, albumin level, CCI, and glycosylated hemoglobin level (P < 0.05). Age, nutritional status, glycosylated hemoglobin level and CCI were the relevant factors for frailty in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients. Conclusions The incidence of frailty is high in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. And many factors are associated with frailty. Clinical staff should pay more attention to frailty issue and take targeted interventions so as to reduce the incidence of frailty.