Multimorbidity, polypharmacy, and COVID-19 infection within the UK Biobank cohort.

ABSTRACT:

Background

It is now well recognised that the risk of severe COVID-19 increases with some long-term conditions (LTCs). However, prior research primarily focuses on individual LTCs and there is a lack of data on the influence of multimorbidity (≥2 LTCs) on the risk of COVID-19. Given the high prevalence of multimorbidity, more detailed understanding of the associations with multimorbidity and COVID-19 would improve risk stratification and help protect those most vulnerable to severe COVID-19. Here we examine the relationships between multimorbidity, polypharmacy (a proxy of multimorbidity), and COVID-19; and how these differ by sociodemographic, lifestyle, and physiological prognostic factors.

Methods and findings

We studied data from UK Biobank (428,199 participants; aged 37

SUBMITTER: McQueenie R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7440632 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature