The Joint Effect of Physical Multimorbidity and Mental Health Conditions Among Adults in Australia

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A flow chart describes the progression of the selection process for our study. HILDA respondents numbered 13,301 for wave 9, 17,501 for wave 13, and 17,571 for wave 17. Because of missing values, we removed 17 respondents from wave 9, 42 from wave 13, and 44 from wave 17. This left a final sample of 13,284 for wave 9, 17,459 for wave 13, and 17,527 for wave 17. The chart presents the number of respondents (sum of waves 9, 13, and 17) by category for the 3 measures used (health service use: 48,174 respondents for general practitioner visits, 48,231 respondents for nights in a hospital, and 34, 967 respondents for prescription medications; work productivity: 40,468 respondents aged 15 to 64 for labor force participation, 7,741 retired respondents for retirement age, and 30,465 respondents who were currently employed for sick leave days; health-related quality of life: 41,100 respondents were scored on the SF-6D).

Figure 1.
Flowchart showing selection of respondents from HILDA Survey and measures used to evaluate health service use, loss of work productivity, and reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL). To assess HRQoL we used the SF-6D, which consists of 11 questions in 6 domains (physical functioning, role limitation, social functioning, pain, mental health, and vitality) from the SF-36, the 36-item short form questionnaire for evaluating HRQoL (17).

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Figure 2.
Prevalence of physical multimorbidity and mental health conditions and the mean number of physical health conditions across 3 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, 2009, 2013, and 2017, by sex and socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status is measured on the SEIFA (Socio Economic Indexes for Areas) scale and ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest status (18).

Prevalence of physical multimorbidity and mental health conditions and the mean number of physical health conditions across 3 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, 2009, 2013, and 2017, by sex and socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status is measured on the SEIFA (Socio Economic Indexes for Areas) scale and ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest status (18).

HILDA Wave	SEIFA 1	SEIFA 2	SEIFA 3	SEIFA 4	SEIFA 5
Men
Physical multimorbidity
9 (2009)	17.8	15.1	11.7	11.0	10.0
13 (2013)	19.1	14.8	13.1	10.5	10.8
17 (2017)	21.9	17.3	16.9	13.6	13.7
Mental health conditions
9 (2009)	11.54	9.5	8.16	6.14	6.68
13 (2013)	14.6	11.9	10.8	8.8	7.0
17 (2017)	19.0	14.5	13.8	10.1	9.7
Mean number of physical health conditions
9 (2009)	0.7	0.6	0.5	0.5	0.4
13 (2013)	0.8	0.6	0.6	0.5	0.5
17 (2017)	0.9	0.7	0.7	0.6	0.5
Women
Physical multimorbidity
9 (2009)	22.3	19.1	15.8	11.2	11.0
13 (2013)	23.2	19.4	17.2	11.4	10.7
17 (2017)	27.2	22.3	19.4	14.8	14.3
Mental health conditions
9 (2009)	18.1	15.3	13.1	11.6	10.7
13 (2013)	21.5	19.2	17.0	13.9	11.5
17 (2017)	27.4	22.0	20.2	19.1	15.5
Mean number of physical health conditions
9 (2009)	0.8	0.7	0.6	0.5	0.5
13 (2013)	0.9	0.7	0.7	0.5	0.5
17 (2017)	1.0	0.8	0.8	0.6	0.6

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