The coexistence of terms to describe the presence of multiple concurrent diseases

Abstract

Background: Consensus on terminology for multiple diseases is lacking. Because of the clinical relevance and social impact of multiple concurrent diseases, it is important that concepts are clear.

Objective: To highlight the diversity of terms in the literature referring to the presence of multiple concurrent diseases/conditions and make recommendations.

Design: A bibliometric analysis of English-language publications indexed in the MEDLINE database from 1970 to 2012 for the terms comorbidity, multimorbidity, polymorbidity, polypathology, pluripathology, multipathology, and multicondition, and a review of definitions of multimorbidity found in English-language publications indexed from 1970 to 2012 in the MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases.

Results: Comorbidity was used in 67,557 publications, multimorbidity in 434, and the other terms in three to 31 publications. At least 144 publications used the term comorbidity without referring to an index disease. Thirteen general definitions of multimorbidity were identified, but only two were frequently used (91% of publications). The most frequently used definition (48% of publications) was "more than one or multiple chronic or long-term diseases/conditions". Multimorbidity was not defined in 51% of the publications using the term.

Conclusions: Comorbidity was overwhelmingly used to describe any clinical entity coexisting with an index disease under study. Multimorbidity was the term most frequently used when no index disease was designated. Several definitions of multimorbidity were found. However, most authors using the term did not define it. The use of clearly defined terms in the literature is recommended until a general consensus on the terminology of multiple coexistent diseases is reached. Journal of Comorbidity 2013;3:4-9.

Keywords: Comorbidity; definitions; multimorbidity; multiple conditions; terminology.

Figure 1

Terms other than comorbidity used in the context of multiple diseases or conditions and number of publications using them in the medical literature in English. The term comorbidity was not included in the figure due to the disproportionally high number of publications using the term (see text).