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Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population

BACKGROUND: The coexistence of several chronic diseases in one same individual, known as multimorbidity, is an important challenge facing health care systems in developed countries. Recent studies have revealed the existence of multimorbidity patterns clustering systematically associated distinct cl...

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Autores principales: Abad-Díez, José María, Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia, Poncel-Falcó, Antonio, Poblador-Plou, Beatriz, Calderón-Meza, José Manuel, Sicras-Mainar, Antoni, Clerencia-Sierra, Mercedes, Prados-Torres, Alexandra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
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Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4070347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24934411
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-14-75
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author Abad-Díez, José María
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Poncel-Falcó, Antonio
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Meza, José Manuel
Sicras-Mainar, Antoni
Clerencia-Sierra, Mercedes
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
author_facet Abad-Díez, José María
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Poncel-Falcó, Antonio
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Meza, José Manuel
Sicras-Mainar, Antoni
Clerencia-Sierra, Mercedes
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
author_sort Abad-Díez, José María
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The coexistence of several chronic diseases in one same individual, known as multimorbidity, is an important challenge facing health care systems in developed countries. Recent studies have revealed the existence of multimorbidity patterns clustering systematically associated distinct clinical entities. We sought to describe age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in men and women over 65 years. METHODS: Observational retrospective multicentre study based on diagnostic information gathered from electronic medical records of 19 primary care centres in Aragon and Catalonia. Multimorbidity patterns were identified through exploratory factor analysis. We performed a descriptive analysis of previously obtained patterns (i.e. cardiometabolic (CM), mechanical (MEC) and psychogeriatric (PG)) and the diseases included in the patterns stratifying by sex and age group. RESULTS: 67.5% of the aged population suffered two or more chronic diseases. 32.2% of men and 45.3% of women were assigned to at least one specific pattern of multimorbidity, and 4.6% of men and 8% of women presented more than one pattern simultaneously. Among women over 65 years the most frequent pattern was the MEC pattern (33.3%), whereas among men it was the CM pattern (21.2%). While the prevalence of the CM and MEC patterns decreased with age, the PG pattern showed a higher prevalence in the older age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Significant gender differences were observed in the prevalence of multimorbidity patterns, women showing a higher prevalence of the MEC and PG patterns, as well as a higher degree of pattern overlapping, probably due to a higher life expectancy and/or worse health. Future studies on multimorbidity patterns should take into account these differences and, therefore, the study of multimorbidity and its impact should be stratified by age and sex.
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spelling pubmed-40703472014-06-26 Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population Abad-Díez, José María Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia Poncel-Falcó, Antonio Poblador-Plou, Beatriz Calderón-Meza, José Manuel Sicras-Mainar, Antoni Clerencia-Sierra, Mercedes Prados-Torres, Alexandra BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: The coexistence of several chronic diseases in one same individual, known as multimorbidity, is an important challenge facing health care systems in developed countries. Recent studies have revealed the existence of multimorbidity patterns clustering systematically associated distinct clinical entities. We sought to describe age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in men and women over 65 years. METHODS: Observational retrospective multicentre study based on diagnostic information gathered from electronic medical records of 19 primary care centres in Aragon and Catalonia. Multimorbidity patterns were identified through exploratory factor analysis. We performed a descriptive analysis of previously obtained patterns (i.e. cardiometabolic (CM), mechanical (MEC) and psychogeriatric (PG)) and the diseases included in the patterns stratifying by sex and age group. RESULTS: 67.5% of the aged population suffered two or more chronic diseases. 32.2% of men and 45.3% of women were assigned to at least one specific pattern of multimorbidity, and 4.6% of men and 8% of women presented more than one pattern simultaneously. Among women over 65 years the most frequent pattern was the MEC pattern (33.3%), whereas among men it was the CM pattern (21.2%). While the prevalence of the CM and MEC patterns decreased with age, the PG pattern showed a higher prevalence in the older age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Significant gender differences were observed in the prevalence of multimorbidity patterns, women showing a higher prevalence of the MEC and PG patterns, as well as a higher degree of pattern overlapping, probably due to a higher life expectancy and/or worse health. Future studies on multimorbidity patterns should take into account these differences and, therefore, the study of multimorbidity and its impact should be stratified by age and sex. BioMed Central 2014-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4070347/ /pubmed/24934411 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-14-75 Text en Copyright © 2014 Abad-Díez et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Abad-Díez, José María
Calderón-Larrañaga, Amaia
Poncel-Falcó, Antonio
Poblador-Plou, Beatriz
Calderón-Meza, José Manuel
Sicras-Mainar, Antoni
Clerencia-Sierra, Mercedes
Prados-Torres, Alexandra
Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title_full Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title_fullStr Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title_full_unstemmed Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title_short Age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
title_sort age and gender differences in the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in the older population
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4070347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24934411
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2318-14-75
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