Multimorbidity of chronic diseases of lifestyle among South African adults
Mukadas O. Akindele, Ushotanefe Useh
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of non-communicable and chronic diseases has been on the increase globally and has been a major factor responsible for high morbidity and mortality. Multimorbidity of the chronic diseases in low/medium income countries should be a major concern for public health practitioners because of the communicable diseases they also battle with. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of multi-morbidity of chronic diseases of lifestyle (CDL) among adult South Africans. METHODS: we employed General House Survey (GHS) data released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) in December 2015 with a response rate was 90.5%. Data on diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol, stroke, heart attack/myocardial infarction, hypertension were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: the outcome of this secondary data analysis showed that about 16.3% of South Africans respondents aged 18 years and above had a single/or multiple CDL. The majority of the respondents with CDL were females (10.9%), older adults (9.4%), married (8.5%), of the black racial extract (11.9%), and reside in urban areas (3.4%). Also, high blood pressure (13.7%) was the most reported prevalent chronic disease while heart attack (1.1%) was the least reported chronic disease. The outcome of regression analysis after adjustment showed that gender (OR=0.56, CI=0.53-0.60, p