Experience of Treatment Burden in Older Adults with Multimorbidity: a Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background As the aging society develops, multimorbidity is increasingly prevalent in an increased number of older adults, which imposes a heavy treatment burden on the group, but the composition of treatment burden of elderly patients with chronic comorbidity in China is not clear. Objective To understand the real experience of treatment burden in elderly patients with multimorbidity, providing a theoretical basis for promoting the research on treatment burden in China. Methods By use of purposive sampling, 21 older inpatients with multimorbidity were selected from three hospitals (one is primary level, another is secondary and another is tertiary) in Chengdu from January to June 2021. Individual, face-to-face, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were utilized to collect their experiences of treatment burden, and the data were recorded, and analyzed using Colaizzi's method of data analysis. Results Of the participants, eight were women, and 13 were men; 10 were selected from the tertiary hospital, seven from the secondary hospital, and four from the primary hospital. Six themes were summarized: economic burden, drug burden, self-management burden, medical service burden, social burden and psychological burden. Conclusion Taken overall, the treatment burden was relatively heavy in older inpatients with multimorbidity. To reduce the treatment burden and improve the efficacy in this group, it is recommended that medical workers should pay attention to their treatment burden, and formulate individualized treatment plan for them.

Keywords

• multiple chronic conditions|aged|treatment burden|qualitative research