Patterns and Related Influencing Factors of Multiple Chronic Diseases Among the Elderly Based on Data Mining in Shanxi, China

Abstract

Background: The presence of multiple chronic diseases has become a public health issue worldwide. The study aimed to explore the patterns and related influencing factors of multiple chronic diseases among the elderly so as to provide a scientific reference for the health management strategy, which is dedicated to the prevention and intervention for multiple chronic diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study, which used a multi-stage random sampling way, was conducted among 3266 elderly aged 60 years and above in Shanxi. A chi square test was used to compare the sociodemographic factors. The data mining methods, including association rule and decision tree, were performed to explore the patterns and related influencing factors of multiple chronic diseases in the elderly.Results: The prevalence of multiple chronic diseases was 30.31%. According to the results of the association rules, there were 10 association patterns screened out. The first five multiple chronic disease patterns were atherosclerosis and hypertension, coronary heart disease and hypertension, diabetes and hypertension, stroke and hypertension, eye disease and hypertension. The decision tree model selected 5 related influencing factors of multiple chronic diseases, including age, smoking, family genetic history, fresh fruit intake frequency and education level, simultaneously generating 9 influence rules.Conclusions: Multiple chronic diseases were prevalent among the elderly, which patterns mainly consisted of two or three chronic diseases. Regarding the unmodifiable related influencing factors, including an older age, a family genetic history, and low education level, relevant departments should help the elderly to establish prevention knowledge and raise awareness of strongly related chronic diseases, so as to reduce the incidence and adverse consequences.

Benefit finding in chronic kidney disease patients receiving hemodialysis: a cross-sectional study

“…Each item is responded to on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 4 (from "not at all" to "extremely"), with higher total scores indicating more BF experiences. This scale has been applied to 1007 patients with chronic diseases at least, which showed good utility [13,14,25]. The Cronbach's α coefficient of the scale was 0.948 and the coefficients of each dimension were 0.700, 0.864, 0.776, 0.894, 0.859 and 0.838 in this study.…”

“…The level of BF in HD patients needs further attention and help to improve. The results of this study showed that the median (interquartile range, IQR) BF score of HD patients was 66 (IQR = 19), a lower level especially compared with the older adults with chronic diseases (78.85 ± 16.70) [13] and stroke patients (97.47 ± 17.64) [14] in China. On the six dimensions of the scale, Altruistic behavior and Appreciation of living and life showed the higher scores, and Spiritual growth dimension had the lowest score.…”

“…It refers to the perception of an individual's positive response to adverse life events, manifested as positive cognitive and behavioral reactions [8]. BF had been explored and proven mainly in cancer patients [9][10][11], family caregivers [11,12], and other fields [10,13,14]. It was less explored in patients with renal disease and only one study investigated 319 renal transplant patients and found BF was present from the pre-transplant stage to the post-transplant stage [15].…”

Theoretical investigations on the chiral transition of Cu(ii) chelated by bis-α-alanine in the aqueous-liquid phase

“…Copper is distributed in various tissues and organs of the body and is also involved in the hematopoietic process of iron and can play an auxiliary role in the regulation of endocrine glands. 3 Copper deficiency can lead to diseases such as anemia, coronary heart disease, uric acid, hyperlipidemia, vitiligo and osteoporosis. 4 Currently, copper deficiency in living organisms is supplemented with inorganic copper such as oral copper gluconate, copper sulfate oral solution, copper acetate and copper citrate, and the use of inorganic copper supplementation causes excess copper ions in living organisms for a short period of time; however, high concentrations of copper can cause cell damage and necrosis, leading to impairment of organ function.…”