Table 1.

Prevalence of multimorbidity in Taiwan by number of common diseases†, age group and year

2003
Age group	Taiwanese population	Prevalence of at least one disease (%)	Prevalence of multimorbidity, by degree of multimorbidity (%)
			2	3	4	5+
20–29	285 406	16.74	4.01	1.15	0.36	0.12
30–39	273 713	24.09	8.04	2.86	1.03	0.37
40–49	269 568	35.91	16.01	7.08	2.92	1.12
50–59	175 456	51.70	30.15	16.49	8.00	3.57
60–69	114 876	66.52	47.08	30.39	17.13	8.70
70–79	74 756	77.86	62.40	45.66	29.10	16.75
80–89	20 002	78.05	64.32	48.74	32.39	19.58
90+	1946	62.23	45.68	33.04	21.12	12.69
All	1 215 723	37.23	20.07	11.40	6.09	3.07

2013
Age group	Taiwanese population	Prevalence of at least one disease (%)	Prevalence of multimorbidity, by degree of multimorbidity (%)
			2	3	4	5+
20–29	245 613	19.85*	5.21	1.49	0.47	0.15
30–39	295 797	30.49*	11.18	4.10	1.55	0.60
40–49	277 889	43.45*	21.76	10.08	4.35	1.83
50–59	272 719	59.90*	37.75	20.87	10.24	4.71
60–69	173 213	75.39*	56.84	37.49	21.74	11.70
70–79	102 826	87.53*	74.64	57.04	38.44	23.60
80–89	52 978	92.01*	82.64	68.10	49.71	33.06
90+	8492	90.44*	80.96	66.52	48.39	32.54
All	1 429 527	48.97*	30.44	18.61	10.73	5.94

*P<0.05 compared with prevalence in 2003 using Χ² tests.

†Hypertension, diabetes, congestive heart failure, coronary syndrome, cardiac dysrhythmias, peripheral vascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic pulmonary disease, renal disease, liver disease, dementia, other neurological disorders, digestive disorders, osteoporosis, arthritis (including rheumatoid arthritis), anxiety dissociative and somatoform disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, and cancer.