RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Community prevalence and dyad disease pattern of multimorbidity in China and India: a systematic review
JF BMJ Global Health
JO BMJ Global Health
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP e008880
DO 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-008880
VO 7
IS 9
A1 Xinyi Zhang
A1 Asutosh Padhi
A1 Ting Wei
A1 Shangzhi Xiong
A1 Jie Yu
A1 Pengpeng Ye
A1 Wenijng Tian
A1 Hongru Sun
A1 David Peiris
A1 Devarsetty Praveen
A1 Maoyi Tian
YR 2022
UL http://gh.bmj.com/content/7/9/e008880.abstract
AB Background Driven by the increasing life expectancy, China and India, the two most populous countries in the world are experiencing a rising burden of multimorbidity. This study aims to explore community prevalence and dyad patterns of multimorbidity in China and India.Methods We conducted a systematic review of five English and Chinese electronic databases. Studies involving adults 18 years or older at a community level, which reported multimorbidity prevalence and/or patterns were included. A modified Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used for quality assessment. Despite large heterogeneity among reported studies, a systematic synthesis of the results was conducted to report the findings.Results From 13 996 studies retrieved, 59 studies met the inclusion criteria (46 in China, 9 in India and 4 in both). The median prevalence of multimorbidity was 30.7% (IQR 17.1, 49.4), ranging from 1.5% to 90.5%. There was a large difference in multimorbidity prevalence between China and India, with median prevalence being 36.1% (IQR 19.6, 48.8) and 28.3% (IQR 8.9, 56.8), respectively. Among 27 studies that reported age-specific prevalence, 19 studies found multimorbidity prevalence increased with age, while 8 studies observed a paradoxical reduction in the oldest age group. Of the 34 studies that reported sex-specific prevalence, 86% (n=32) observed a higher prevalence in females. The most common multimorbidity patterns from 14 studies included hypertensive diseases combined with diabetes mellitus, arthropathies, heart diseases and metabolic disorders. All included studies were rated as fair or poor quality.Conclusion Multimorbidity is highly prevalent in China and India with hypertensive diseases and other comorbidities being the most observed patterns. The overall quality of the studies was low and there was a lack of representative samples in most studies. Large epidemiology studies, using a common definition of multimorbidity and national representative samples, with sex disaggregation are needed in both countries.PROSPERO registration number CRD42020176774.Data are available in a public, open access repository. Data and analyses will be available on request from the corresponding author (MT).