IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0083783.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multimorbidity and Comorbidity of Chronic Diseases among the Senior Australians: Prevalence and Patterns

Author

Listed:
  • M Mofizul Islam
  • Jose M Valderas
  • Laurann Yen
  • Paresh Dawda
  • Tanisha Jowsey
  • Ian S McRae

Abstract

Understanding patterns and identifying common clusters of chronic diseases may help policymakers, researchers, and clinicians to understand the needs of the care process better and potentially save both provider and patient time and cost. However, only limited research has been conducted in this area, and ambiguity remains as those limited previous studies used different approaches to identify common clusters and findings may vary with approaches. This study estimates the prevalence of common chronic diseases and examines co-occurrence of diseases using four approaches: (i) identification of the most occurring pairs and triplets of comorbid diseases; performing (ii) cluster analysis of diseases, (iii) principal component analysis, and (iv) latent class analysis. Data were collected using a questionnaire mailed to a cross-sectional sample of senior Australians, with 4574 responses. Eighty-two percent of respondents reported having at least one chronic disease and over 52% reported having at least two chronic diseases. Respondents suffering from any chronic diseases had an average of 2.4 comorbid diseases. Three defined groups of chronic diseases were identified: (i) asthma, bronchitis, arthritis, osteoporosis and depression; (ii) high blood pressure and diabetes; and (iii) cancer, with heart disease and stroke either making a separate group or “attaching” themselves to different groups in different analyses. The groups were largely consistent across the approaches. Stability and sensitivity analyses also supported the consistency of the groups. The consistency of the findings suggests there is co-occurrence of diseases beyond chance, and patterns of co-occurrence are important for clinicians, patients, policymakers and researchers. Further studies are needed to provide a strong evidence base to identify comorbid groups which would benefit from appropriate guidelines for the care and management of patients with particular disease clusters.

Suggested Citation

  • M Mofizul Islam & Jose M Valderas & Laurann Yen & Paresh Dawda & Tanisha Jowsey & Ian S McRae, 2014. "Multimorbidity and Comorbidity of Chronic Diseases among the Senior Australians: Prevalence and Patterns," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0083783
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083783
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083783
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083783&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0083783?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Inge Kirchberger & Christa Meisinger & Margit Heier & Anja-Kerstin Zimmermann & Barbara Thorand & Christine S Autenrieth & Annette Peters & Karl-Heinz Ladwig & Angela Döring, 2012. "Patterns of Multimorbidity in the Aged Population. Results from the KORA-Age Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bomi Park & Hye Ah Lee & Hyesook Park, 2019. "Use of latent class analysis to identify multimorbidity patterns and associated factors in Korean adults aged 50 years and older," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, November.
    2. Jonathan Stokes & Maria Panagioti & Rahul Alam & Kath Checkland & Sudeh Cheraghi-Sohi & Peter Bower, 2015. "Effectiveness of Case Management for 'At Risk' Patients in Primary Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(7), pages 1-42, July.
    3. Mohammad Akhtar Hussain & Judith M Katzenellenbogen & Frank M Sanfilippo & Kevin Murray & Sandra C Thompson, 2018. "Complexity in disease management: A linked data analysis of multimorbidity in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal patients hospitalised with atherothrombotic disease in Western Australia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Bruno Pereira Nunes & Fabio Alberto Camargo-Figuera & Marília Guttier & Paula Duarte Oliveira & Tiago N. Munhoz & Alicia Matijasevich & Andréa Dâmaso Bertoldi & Fernando César Wehrmeister & Marysabel , 2016. "Multimorbidity in adults from a southern Brazilian city: occurrence and patterns," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 61(9), pages 1013-1020, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ignatios Ioakeim-Skoufa & Beatriz Poblador-Plou & Jonás Carmona-Pírez & Jesús Díez-Manglano & Rokas Navickas & Luis Andrés Gimeno-Feliu & Francisca González-Rubio & Elena Jureviciene & Laimis Dambraus, 2020. "Multimorbidity Patterns in the General Population: Results from the EpiChron Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Bomi Park & Hye Ah Lee & Hyesook Park, 2019. "Use of latent class analysis to identify multimorbidity patterns and associated factors in Korean adults aged 50 years and older," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-13, November.
    3. Jesús Carretero-Bravo & Begoña Ramos-Fiol & Esther Ortega-Martín & Víctor Suárez-Lledó & Alejandro Salazar & Cristina O’Ferrall-González & María Dueñas & Juan Luis Peralta-Sáez & Juan Luis González-Ca, 2022. "Multimorbidity Patterns and Their Association with Social Determinants, Mental and Physical Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-17, December.
    4. Caroline A Jackson & Annette J Dobson & Leigh R Tooth & Gita D Mishra, 2016. "Lifestyle and Socioeconomic Determinants of Multimorbidity Patterns among Mid-Aged Women: A Longitudinal Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-16, June.
    5. Helle Gybel Juul-Larsen & Janne Petersen & Ditte Maria Sivertsen & Ove Andersen, 2017. "Prevalence and overlap of Disease Management Program diseases in older hospitalized patients," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 283-293, September.
    6. Januse Nogueira de Carvalho & Marianna de Camargo Cancela & Dyego Leandro Bezerra de Souza, 2018. "Lifestyle factors and high body mass index are associated with different multimorbidity clusters in the Brazilian population," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-15, November.
    7. Valentin Walker & Christine Perret-Guillaume & Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot & Nelly Agrinier & Serge Hercberg & Pilar Galan & Karen E Assmann & Serge Briançon & Christine Rotonda, 2016. "Effect of Multimorbidity on Health-Related Quality of Life in Adults Aged 55 Years or Older: Results from the SU.VI.MAX 2 Cohort," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Januse Nogueira de Carvalho & Ângelo Giuseppe Roncalli & Marianna de Camargo Cancela & Dyego Leandro Bezerra de Souza, 2017. "Prevalence of multimorbidity in the Brazilian adult population according to socioeconomic and demographic characteristics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-13, April.
    9. Hossein Tabatabaei-Jafari & Jose A. Salinas-Perez & Mary Anne Furst & Nasser Bagheri & John Mendoza & David Burke & Peter McGeorge & Luis Salvador-Carulla, 2020. "Patterns of Service Provision in Older People’s Mental Health Care in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-18, November.
    10. Fabian Kleinke & Peter Penndorf & Sabina Ulbricht & Marcus Dörr & Wolfgang Hoffmann & Neeltje van den Berg, 2020. "Levels of and determinants for physical activity and physical inactivity in a group of healthy elderly people in Germany: Baseline results of the MOVING-study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-15, August.
    11. Arokiasamy, Perianayagam & Uttamacharya, Uttamacharya & Jain, Kshipra, 2013. "Multiple Chronic Diseases and Their Linkages with Functional health and Subjective Wellbeing among adults in the low-middle income countries: An Analysis of SAGE Wave1 Data, 2007/10," MPRA Paper 54914, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2014.
    12. Fabian Kleinke & Sabina Ulbricht & Marcus Dörr & Peter Penndorf & Wolfgang Hoffmann & Neeltje van den Berg, 2021. "A low-threshold intervention to increase physical activity and reduce physical inactivity in a group of healthy elderly people in Germany: Results of the randomized controlled MOVING study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-16, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0083783. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.