Multimorbidity Patterns in a National Representative Sample of the Spanish Adult Population

Background: In the context of population aging, multimorbidity has emerged as a growing concern in public health. However, little is known about multimorbidity patterns and other issues surrounding chronic diseases. The aim of our study was to examine multimorbidity patterns, the relationship between physical and mental conditions and the distribution of multimorbidity in the Spanish adult population. Methods: Data from this cross-sectional study was collected from the COURAGE study. A total of 4,583 participants from Spain were included, 3,625 aged over 50. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to detect multimorbidity patterns in the population over 50 years of age. Crude and adjusted binary logistic regressions were performed to identify individual associations between physical and mental conditions. Results: Three multimorbidity patterns rose: ‘cardio-respiratory ’ (angina, asthma, chronic lung disease), ‘mental-arthritis’ (arthritis, depression, anxiety) and the ‘aggregated pattern ’ (angina, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, cataracts, edentulism