Incidence, prevalence and characteristics of multimorbidity in different age groups among urban hospitalized patients in China

The aim of the study was to investigate the incidence, prevalence and characteristics of multimorbidity in urban inpatients of different age groups. This study used data from the National Insurance Claim for Epidemiology Research (NICER) to calculate the overall incidence, prevalence, geographic and age distribution patterns, health care burden, and multimorbidity patterns for multimorbidity in 2017. According to our study, the overall prevalence of multimorbidity was 6.68%, and the overall prevalence was 14.87% in 2017. The prevalence of multimorbidity increases with age. The pattern of the geographic distribution of multimorbidity shows that the prevalence of multimorbidity is relatively high in South East China. The average annual health care expenditure of patients with multimorbidity increased with age and rose rapidly, especially among older patients. Patients with cancer and chronic kidney disease have higher treatment costs. Patients with hypertension or ischemic heart disease had a significantly higher relative risk of multimorbidity than other included noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Hyperlipidemia has generated the highest number of association rules, which may suggest that hyperlipidemia may be both a risk factor for other NCDs and an outcome of them.