Objective  To examine the status of frailty and to explore impacts of life attitude and personality pattern on frailty among disabled oldest-old people.

  Methods  We recruited 1 664 disabled oldest-old residents aged ≥ 75 years with stratified random cluster sampling from communities covered by 10 community health care centers in Tangshan city and then conducted a household survey among the participants between July 2016 and January 2017 with a self-designed general questionnaire, Comprehensive Frailty Assessment Instrument (CFAI), and Activities of Daily Living (ADL).

  Results  Among all the participants, the prevalence rate of frailty was 100 %, with the prevalence rates of 15.81 % (263/1 664), 32.99 % (549/1 664), and 51.20 % (852/1 664) for mild, moderate, and severe frailty. Logistic regression analyses revealed following significant impact factors of frailty among the participants: extrovert personality (odds ratio OR = 0.655), attitude towards life (without positive attitude towards life: OR = 2.440, without perceived happiness in life at all: OR = 21.025, confiding in others frequently: OR = 0.477, not participating in community activities: OR = 2.547), and personality type (no perceived life enrichment: OR = 0.183, no perceived boredom: OR = 0.554, having no harmonious relationship with others: OR = 1.585, no perceived depression: OR = 0.457, feeling lonely at all the time: OR = 4.130, with perceived neglect at all the time: OR = 2.986) (P < 0.05 for all).

  Conclusion  Frailty condition differs by attitude towards life and personality type among disabled oldest-old people and education on human life cycle should be promoted to retard frailty progress among the population.