BACKGROUND

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of multimorbidity and its associated factors among the older population in China to propose policy recommendations for the management of chronic diseases in older adults.

METHODS

This study was conducted based on the 2021 Shenzhen Healthy Ageing Research (SHARE), and involved analysis of 346,760 participants aged 65 or older. Multimorbidity is defined as the presence of two or more clinically diagnosed or non self-reported chronic diseases among the eight chronic diseases surveyed in an individual. The Logistic analysis was adopted to explore the potential associated factors of multimorbidity.

RESULTS

The prevalences of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, anemia, chronic kidney disease, hyperuricemia, dyslipidemia and fatty liver disease were 10.41%, 62.09%, 24.21%, 12.78%, 6.14%, 20.52%, 44.32%, and 33.25%, respectively. The prevalence of multimorbidity was 63.46%. The mean count of chronic diseases per participant was 2.14. Logistic regression indicated that gender, age, marriage status, lifestyle (smoking status, drinking status, and physical activity), and socioeconomic status (household registration, education level, payment method of medical expenses) were the common predictors of multimorbidity for older adults, among which, being women, married, or engaged in physical activity was found to be a relative determinant as a protective factor for multimorbidity after the other covariates were controlled.

CONCLUSION

Multimorbidity is prevalent among older adults in Chinese. Guideline development, clinical management,and public intervention should target a group of diseases instead of a single condition.