The diseases that cause multimorbidity and their prevalences in İzmir

Progress in the health field; allowing the prolongation of life expectancy with chronic diseases, has led to an increase in the incidence of coexistence of chronic diseases. This has led to the emergence of the concept of multimorbidity, which is defined as the coexistence of two or more chronic diseases. Our aim in this study was to investigate the diseases that constitute multimorbidity in İzmir, their frequency and related factors and to evaluate this current concept with the point of family medicine perspective.Our study was conducted face to face with volunteers aged 18 years and over who consulted to the Primary Care Centers in the provincial centers of İzmir. Three questionnaires including; a questionnaire surveying 19 chronic diseases based on the literature, The Morisky Medication Compliance Questionnaire and The International Physical Activity Questionnaire were applied. 982 participants aged 18 years and over were included in the study. 30,1% of participants were aged 18-34 years; 35,4% were between 35-49 years, 25,1% were in the age range of 50-64, and 9,4% were 65 years and over. Gender distribution was found fifty fifty. Physically active individuals constituted 28.9% of the participants and those with BMI>30kg/m2 constituted 23.7% of the participants.It was determined that 48.7% of the participants did not have a chronic disease. The prevalence of the coexistence of two and more chronic diseases, and three and more chronic diseases was 30,9% and 15.2%, respectively. In addition, it has been found that the frequency of multimorbidity has increased with age. Furthermore, it has been found that the multimorbidity rate was lower in non-obese and physically active individuals.