Abstract
Background: Multimorbidity patterns is associated with future mortality among older adutls. However, the addictive effect of disability for distinct multimorbidity patters is unclear. Our aim was to identify the multimorbidity patterns of Taiwanese people aged over 50 years and to explore their association between multimorbidity patterns with/without disability and future mortality.
Methods: This longitudinal cohort study used data from the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging. The data were obtained from wave 3, and the multimorbidity patterns in 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011 were analyzed separately by latent class analysis (LCA). The association between each disease group with/without disability and mortality was examined using logistic regression.
Results: 5124 older adults with average age of 66.7 years old were included. Four disease patterns were identified in 1996, namely, the cardiometabolic (21.6%), arthritis-cataract (11.6%), relatively healthy (61.2%), and multimorbidity (5.6%) groups. After adjusting all the confounders, the cardiometabolic group with disability showed the highest risk for mortality (odds ratio: 2.83, 95% CI: 1.70-4.70), followed by Multimorbidity group with disability (odds ratio: 2.33, 95% CI: 1.17-4.64) and relatively health group with disability (odds ratio: 1.79, 95% CI: 1.22-2.62) and cardiometabolic group without disability (odds ratio: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.01-1.45).
Conclusion: This longitudinal study reveals disability plays an important role on mortality among older adults with distinct multimorbidity patterns. Older adults with a cardiometabolic multimorbidity pattern with disability had a dismal outcome. Thus, healthcare professionals should put more emphasis on the prevention and identification of cardiometabolic multimorbidity, with routine checkup of their functional limitation.