Fri. May 17, 2019 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM Room 3 (2F Room B-1)

Organizer/Chair: Regina Wing Shan Sit(The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Multimorbidity, commonly defined as the presence of two or more chronic medical conditions in an individual, is associated with decreased quality of life, functional decline, and increased healthcare utilization. Patients with multimorbidity are commonly managed by primary care physicians, knowledge about multimorbidity over time is thefrefore required to improve patient care.

In this 90-minutes symposium, we will:

1) Give an overview on the evolving definitions and epidemiology of multimorbidity. We believe a better understanding of the epidemiology of multimorbidity is necessary to develop interventions to prevent it, reduce its burden, and align health-care services more closely with patients' needs
2) Rreveal the unexplored health consequences associated with multimorbidity, such as patients’ help-seeking behaviors, drug compliance and self-management strategies, which are essential factors in chronic disease management.
3) Discuss the potential complex interventions for the management of multimorbidity. Managing several chronic conditions with the current single disease focus of clinical guidelines and research is a challenge to general practitioners. Therefore. the concepts of complex interventions will be introduced and its role to improve function in multimorbidity will be emphasized.