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By Martin Fortin
We published recently a bibliometric study of English language publications indexed from 1970 to 2012 that showed a diversity of terms used to describe the presence of multiple concurrent diseases: comorbidity, multimorbidity, polymorbidity, polypathology, pluripathology, multipathology, multicondition [1]. Comorbidity was overwhelmingly used when one disease/condition was designated as index, as described by Feinstein [2]. Multimorbidity was the term most often used when no disease/condition was designated as index, but several different definitions exist.
We would like to invite you to have a look at the results of the bibliometric study and then to complete a two-question survey that should take you approximately one minute to complete. The questions are:
1-Which definition do you think should be used for multimorbidity?
a) Multiple co-occurring chronic or long-term diseases or conditions, none considered as index disease.
b) Multiple co-occurring diseases or conditions, none considered as index disease.
c) Any of the above definitions.
d) Another definition (please, provide a definition or a reference):
________________________________________________________________________________________
2-What is your country of origin? ____________________________
The deadline to participate in the survey is January 31, 2014. We would like to receive input from as many people as possible. Please consider completing the survey as your input is very important. Many thanks for your help.
Results of the survey will be posted in February 2014.
Click here to complete the survey
[1] Almirall J, Fortin M. The coexistence of terms to describe the presence of multiple concurrent diseases. Journal of Comorbidity. 2013;3(1):4-9.
[2] Feinstein AR. The pre-therapeutic classification of co-morbidity in chronic diseases. J Chronic Diseases. 1970;23:455-469.