Chronic diseases, multimorbidity common among China’s older adults

Chronic diseases and multimorbidity are highly prevalent among Chinese older adults, especially in women, a recent study has found.

“The negative effects of multimorbidity are serious. Health departments should determine the characteristics of different multimorbidity patterns and develop corresponding treatment and medication guidelines in accordance with this information,” the researchers said.

The study included 9,710 elderly adults who had participated in the 2015 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. The multimorbidity analysis involved the age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index (AAC) and made use of web graphing and spatial autocorrelation.

Chronic diseases were common in the study population. Arthritis or rheumatism was the most prevalent condition, present in 38.6 percent of the participants. This was followed by hypertension, detected in 33.31 percent. Nearly half (49.46 percent) had multimorbidity.

The Chi-square test was then performed to assess the difference of chronic disease prevalence between sexes and across the urban-rural divide. Except for malignancies and memory-related disorders, chronic conditions tended to be more common in women.

On the other hand, liver and kidney diseases, as well as emotional, nervous, and psychiatric problems, tended to be more common in urban vs rural areas.

Majority (53.41 percent) of the older adults had mild multimorbidity, as assessed by the AAC. In comparison, 38.88 percent had moderate and 7.71 percent had severe multimorbidity. Survival was worse in participants with higher comorbidity scores (p<0.001).