Background
The current study aimed to empirically identify multimorbidity clusters in relation to healthcare use and to examine whether healthcare use improves the self-rated health (SRH) of people with different multimorbidity clusters.
Data and Methods
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.
Results
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 neighbour matching method demonstrated that healthcare use was significantly associated with a decline in SRH in each multimorbidity cluster.
Conclusion
Our findings support the creation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) focusing on a patient-centric approach to optimize multimorbidity management in older people. Additionally, findings suggest the urgency of inclusion of counseling and therapies for addressing well-being when treating patients with multimorbidity.

Authors:
Abhishek Anand, International Institute for Population Sciences, India

About the Presenter(s)
Mr Abhishek Anand is a University Doctoral Student at International Institute for Population Sciences in India

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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