Open AccessMultimorbidity and its associated factors among adults aged 50 and over: A cross-sectional study in 17 European countries
Author(s) -
Dyego Leandro Bezerra de Souza,
Albert Oliveras-Fabregas,
Albert Espelt,
Marina Bosque-Prous,
Marianna de Camargo Cancela,
Ester Teixidó-Compañó,
Javier Jerez-Roig
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0246623
Subject(s) - loneliness , cross sectional study , medicine , quality of life (healthcare) , gerontology , demography , poisson regression , body mass index , bivariate analysis , environmental health , population , psychiatry , nursing , pathology , sociology , statistics , mathematics
Aims To estimate the prevalence of multimorbidity among European community-dwelling adults, as well as to analyse the association with gender, age, education, self-rated health, loneliness, quality of life, size of social network, Body Mass Index (BMI) and disability. Methods A cross-sectional study based on wave 6 (2015) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) was conducted, and community-dwelling participants aged 50+ (n = 63,844) from 17 European countries were selected. Multimorbidity was defined as presenting two or more health conditions. The independent variables were gender, age group, educational level, self-rated health, loneliness, size of network, quality of life, BMI and disability (1+ limitations of basic activities of daily living). Poisson regression models with robust variance were fit for bivariate and multivariate analysis. Results The prevalence of multimorbidity was 28.2% (confidence interval–CI 95%: 27.5.8–29.0) among men and 34.5% (CI95%: 34.1–35.4) among women. The most common health conditions were cardiometabolic and osteoarticular diseases in both genders, and emotional disorders in younger women. A large variability in the prevalence of multimorbidity in European countries was verified, even between countries of the same region. Conclusions Multimorbidity was associated with sociodemographic and physical characteristics, self-rated health, quality of life and loneliness.