Epidemiology Codexery

Comorbidity

Simultaneous presence of two or more medical conditions in a patient.

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Comorbidity includes all additional ailments, whether physiological or psychological, that a person experiences alongside a primary diagnosis.[1] In medicine, the term "comorbidity" describes a person having two or more medical conditions at the same time, which frequently occur alongside a primary condition.[1]

Quick Facts

Field
  • Medicine
  • psychiatry
  • epidemiology
Known for
  • Concept of simultaneous medical conditions
  • Charlson Comorbidity Index
  • comorbidity–polypharmacy score

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

The term "comorbidity" was introduced in medicine by A.R. Feinstein in 1970 to describe cases where a distinct additional clinical entity occurred before or during treatment for the index disease.[2] Feinstein demonstrated comorbidity using patients affected by rheumatic fever, finding the worst state in those with multiple simultaneous diseases.[3] Comorbidity is distinct from multimorbidity: comorbidity focuses on one index condition, while multimorbidity describes two or more chronic conditions without any holding priority.[4] In psychiatry, comorbidity refers to more than one diagnosis occurring at the same time, but it may reflect an inability to supply a single diagnosis accounting for all symptoms.[5]

The comorbidity–polypharmacy score sums all known comorbid conditions and associated medications, and has been validated in trauma populations.[6] Three distinct definitions exist for "comorbid": a condition that exists simultaneously with but independently of another; a condition that is caused by, causes, or is related to another; or any two or more conditions present at the same time, regardless of any causal link.[7] To forecast mortality in patients with conditions like heart disease, AIDS, or cancer, the Charlson Comorbidity Index uses a set of 17 conditions.[8] Based on 1,779,167 hospital stays from a California statewide inpatient database, the Elixhauser measure identifies 30 comorbidities by applying ICD-9-CM codes.[9]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "comorbidity", Wiktionary, 2022-02-07; "comorbidity Etymology of comorbidity by etymonline", www.etymonline.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rhee, "The Validity of the Neale and Kendler Model-Fitting Approach in Examining the Etiology of Comorbidity", Behavior Genetics, May 2004, p. 251–65 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Feinstein, "The pre-therapeutic classification of co-morbidity in chronic disease", Journal of Chronic Diseases, 1970, p. 455–68 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Marengoni, "Aging with multimorbidity: A systematic review of the literature", Ageing Research Reviews, 12 March 2011, p. 430–439; Harrison, "Comorbidity versus multimorbidity: Why it matters", Journal of Multimorbidity and Comorbidity, 2021-01-01, p. 263355652199399 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: First, "Mutually Exclusive versus Co-Occurring Diagnostic Categories: The Challenge of Diagnostic Comorbidity", Psychopathology, 2005, p. 206–10 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Evans, "Comorbidity–polypharmacy scoring facilitates outcome prediction in older trauma patients", J Am Geriatr Soc, August 2012, p. 1465–70; Justiniano, "Comorbidity–polypharmacy score predicts in-hospital complications and the need for discharge to extended care facility in older burn patients", J Burn Care Res, Jan 2015, p. 193–96; Justiniano, "Comorbidity–polypharmacy score: a novel adjunct in post-emergency department trauma triage", J Surg Res, May 2013, p. 16–19; Evans, "Comorbidity–polypharmacy scoring facilitates outcome prediction en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Valderas, "Defining Comorbidity: Implications for Understanding Health and Health Services", Annals of Family Medicine, 2009, p. 357–63; "Comorbidity and multimorbidity in medicine today: challenges and opportunities for bringing separated branches of medicine closer to each other", Psychiatr Danub., June 2013, p. 18–28 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Charlson, "A new method of classifying prognostic comorbidity in longitudinal studies: Development and validation", Journal of Chronic Diseases, 1987, p. 373–83 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Comorbidity" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Van Walraven, "A Modification of the Elixhauser Comorbidity Measures into a Point System for Hospital Death Using Administrative Data", Medical Care, 2009, p. 626–33; Sharabiani, "Systematic review of comorbidity indices for administrative data", Medical Care, December 2012, p. 1109–18 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Comorbidity (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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