Association between multimorbidity patterns and healthcare costs among middle-aged and older adults in China

Multimorbidity and associated informal care receiving characteristics for US older adults: a latent class analysis

BACKGROUND

Older adults with varying patterns of multimorbidity may require distinct types of care and rely on informal caregiving to meet their care needs. This study aims to identify groups of older adults with distinct, empirically-determined multimorbidity patterns and compare characteristics of informal care received among estimated classes.

METHODS

Data are from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). Ten chronic conditions were included to estimate multimorbidity patterns among 7532 individuals using latent class analysis. Multinomial logistic regression model was estimated to examine the association between sociodemographic characteristics, health status and lifestyle variables, care-receiving characteristics and latent class membership.

RESULTS

A four-class solution identified the following multimorbidity groups: some somatic conditions with moderate cognitive impairment (30%), cardiometabolic (25%), musculoskeletal (24%), and multisystem (21%). Compared with those who reported receiving no help, care recipients who received help with household activities only (OR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.05-1.98), mobility but not self-care (OR = 1.63, 95% CI 1.05-2.53), or self-care but not mobility (OR = 2.07, 95% CI 1.29-3.31) had greater likelihood of being in the multisystem group versus the some-somatic group. Having more caregivers was associated with higher odds of being in the multisystem group compared with the some-somatic group (OR = 1.09, 95% CI 1.00-1.18), whereas receiving help from paid helpers was associated with lower odds of being in the multisystem group (OR = 0.36, 95% CI 0.19-0.77).

CONCLUSIONS

Results highlighted different care needs among persons with distinct combinations of multimorbidity, in particular the wide range of informal needs among older adults with multisystem multimorbidity. Policies and interventions should recognize the differential care needs associated with multimorbidity patterns to better provide person-centered care.

A scoping review finds a growing trend in studies validating multimorbidity patterns and identifies five broad types of validation methods

OBJECTIVES

Multimorbidity, the presence of two or more long-term conditions, is a growing public health concern. Many studies use analytical methods to discover multimorbidity patterns from data. We aimed to review approaches used in published literature to validate these patterns.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

We systematically searched PubMed and Web of Science for studies published between July 2017 and July 2023 that used analytical methods to discover multimorbidity patterns.

RESULTS

Out of 31,617 studies returned by the searches, 172 were included. Of these, 111 studies (64%) conducted validation, the number of studies with validation increased from 53.13% (17 out of 32 studies) to 71.25% (57 out of 80 studies) in 2017-2019 to 2022-2023, respectively. Five types of validation were identified: assessing the association of multimorbidity patterns with clinical outcomes (n = 79), stability across subsamples (n = 26), clinical plausibility (n = 22), stability across methods (n = 7) and exploring common determinants (n = 2). Some studies used multiple types of validation.

CONCLUSION

The number of studies conducting a validation of multimorbidity patterns is clearly increasing. The most popular validation approach is assessing the association of multimorbidity patterns with clinical outcomes. Methodological guidance on the validation of multimorbidity patterns is needed.

Exploring multimorbidity clusters in relation to healthcare use and its impact on self-rated health among older people in India

The conventional definition of multimorbidity may not address the complex treatment needs resulting from interactions between multiple conditions, impacting self-rated health (SRH). In India, there is limited research on healthcare use and SRH considering diverse disease combinations in individuals with multimorbidity. This study aims to identify multimorbidity clusters related to healthcare use and determine if it improves the self-rated health of individuals in different clusters. This study extracted information from cross-sectional data of the first wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), conducted in 2017-18. The study participants were 31,373 people aged ≥ 60 years. A total of nineteen chronic diseases were incorporated to identify the multimorbidity clusters using latent class analysis (LCA) in the study. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the association between identified clusters and healthcare use. A propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was utilised to further examine the health benefit (i.e., SRH) of using healthcare in each identified cluster. LCA analysis identified five different multimorbidity clusters: relatively healthy' (68.72%), 'metabolic disorder (16.26%), 'hypertension-gastrointestinal-musculoskeletal' (9.02%), 'hypertension-gastrointestinal' (4.07%), 'complex multimorbidity' (1.92%). Older people belonging to the complex multimorbidity [aOR:7.03, 95% CI: 3.54-13.96] and hypertension-gastrointestinal-musculoskeletal [aOR:3.27, 95% CI: 2.74-3.91] clusters were more likely to use healthcare. Using the nearest neighbor matching method, results from PSM analysis demonstrated that healthcare use was significantly associated with a decline in SRH across all multimorbidity clusters. Findings from this study highlight the importance of understanding multimorbidity clusters and their implications for healthcare utilization and patient well-being. Our findings support the creation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) focusing on a patient-centric approach to optimize multimorbidity management in older people. Additionally, finding suggest the urgency of inclusion of counseling and therapies for addressing well-being when treating patients with multimorbidity.

Acute Pancreatitis-Drivers of Hospitalisation Cost-A Seven-Year Retrospective Study from a Large Tertiary Center

(1) Introduction: Acute pancreatitis (AP) remains a global burden of cost for healthcare services. We found a high degree of heterogeneity in cost-related reports and a scarcity of data regarding the cost of AP episodes in European and Asian populations. We aimed to estimate the median daily cost of hospitalisation (DCH) of AP in our population. Our secondary aims included estimating the total cost of hospitalisation (TCH) and the total cost of AP in Romania, as well as assessing the correlation between median DCH and ward, age, sex, length of stay (LoS), intensive care unit (ICU), outcome, severity, morphology, and aetiology of AP. (2) Material and methods: This retrospective cohort study included 1473 cases recruited from the electronic health records of the University Emergency Hospital of Bucharest. Statistical tests used included Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis with post-hoc Dunn-Bonferroni, and Pearson correlation two-tailed. (3) Results: We found a median DCH of AP of USD 203.8 and a median TCH of USD 1360.5. The total yearly cost of AP in Romania was estimated at around USD 19 million. The majority of males with AP (61.8%) were mostly discharged as healed/ameliorated (83.8%); a majority had local complications (55.4%), which were mostly alcohol-related (35.1%). Regarding the aetiology, biliary-related AP was a cost driver, with significant statistical differences observed in all studied groups (p < 0.01). Morphology assessment revealed that acute necrotic collections were associated with high cost and meaningful disparities among the groups (p < 0.01). Cost was also associated with severity, with significant deviations among all groups (p < 0.01). Outcome-at-discharge as deceased correlated with higher costs, with substantial differences within groups (p < 0.01). The need for an intensive care unit was also a large driver of cost (p < 0.01). Females were prone to more expensive costs (p < 0.01). Surgical cases necessitated more financial resources (p < 0.01). (4) Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on the cost of AP in Romania. Our findings showed that the drivers of increased AP costs might be older age, ICU, intra-hospital mortality, severe AP, local complications such as acute necrotic collections, biliary aetiology, and female sex. We found large heterogeneity and scarcity regarding cost-related data in the literature.

Effects of multimorbidity coexistence on the risk of mortality in the older adult population in China

Background

Multimorbidity coexistence is a serious public health issue affecting a significant number of older adults worldwide. However, associations between multimorbidity and mortality are rarely studied in China. We assessed the effects of multimorbidity coexistence on mortality among a nationwide sample of older adults from China.

Objective

We analyzed 10-year (2008-2018) longitudinal data of 12,337 individuals who took part in China, a nationwide survey of people aged 65 years and above. We used the Cox proportional hazard model to determine the effects of multimorbidity on the all-cause mortality risk. We also examined mortality risk between sex and age obtained through differential analysis.

Results

At baseline, 30.2, 29.9, and 39.9% of participants had 0, 1, and 2 or more diseases, respectively. The cumulative follow-up of this study was 27,428 person-years (median follow-up = 2.7 years; range, 0.01-11.3 years), with 8297 deaths. The HRs (95% CIs) for all-cause mortality in participants with 1, and 2 or more conditions compared with those with none were 1.04 (0.98, 1.10) and 1.12 (1.06, 1.18), respectively. The heterogeneity analysis indicated that, the mortality risk for 80-94 years and 95-104 years group with multimorbidity coexistence is 1.12 (1.05-1.21) and 1.11 (1.01-1.23), respectively, but the mortality risk for 65-79 years group with multimorbidity coexistence was not statistically significant. The heterogeneity analysis indicated that, the mortality risk for men and women in older adults with multimorbidity coexistence is 1.15 (1.06, 1.25) and 1.08 (1.01, 1.17), respectively.

Conclusion

Multimorbidity coexistence is associated with an increase in an increased risk of death in older individuals, with the effect being relatively significant in those aged 80-94 years.