By Martin Fortin

It is known that settings affect estimation of the prevalence of multimorbidity. In a recently published paper  [1], we have compared estimates of the prevalence of multimorbidity in the general population and in primary care clinical practices.

The new aspect of this recent study was that prevalence in both settings was measured simultaneously, in the same region, and with the same methods. This way, we eliminated methodological limitations found in previous studies that prevented to conclude definitively the extent to which prevalence estimates differ in these two study populations [2].

Also, we explored the effect of using different operational definitions of multimorbidity on the differences of prevalence observed between the two sampled populations.

We concluded that there is a difference of about 10% in prevalence estimates of multimorbidity between samples from the general population and primary care clinical practices, with a higher prevalence in the latter setting. The difference of the prevalence between the two settings was not affected by the use of different operational definitions of multimorbidity.

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1.- Mokraoui NM, Haggerty J, Almirall J, Fortin M. Prevalence of self-reported multimorbidity in the general population and in primary care practices: a cross-sectional study. BMC Res Notes. 2016;9:314.

2.- Fortin M, Hudon C, Haggerty J, van den Akker M, Almirall J. Prevalence estimates of multimorbidity: a comparative study of two sources. BMC Health Services Research. 2010;10:111.