ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1643525
This article is part of the Research TopicHealth Policy Approaches to Chronic Disease ManagementView all 14 articles
Longitudinal Study on Health-Related Quality of Life and Multimorbidity: From Trajectories to Outcomes in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Public Health, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, China
- 2Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, China
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Background: The association between multimorbidity and health-related quality of life has been extensively studied.. This study aimed to investigate the longitudinal association between multimorbidity and health-related quality of life in a rural Chinese population. Specifically, we sought to: (1) examine how the trajectory of multimorbidity burden influences subsequent health-related quality of life, and (2) explore how the trajectory of health-related quality of life, in turn, influences the incidence of multimorbidity. Methods: Based on a longitudinal survey of the health status of rural community residents aged 18 years and above in 2012, 2015, 2019, and 2022, a group-based trajectory model was used to fit the trajectory of multimorbidity and health-related quality of life utility index over time. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to analyze the association trajectory with outcomes between the health-related quality of life utility index and multimorbidity. A series of sensitivity analyses was used to ensure the robustness of results. Results: A total of 1398 residents who completed the four follow-up surveys were included in the analysis. Two trajectories of the health-related quality of life utility index were identified, and the risk of two and three or more multimorbidities in the decline trajectory was 1.95 and 3.78 times greater than that in the stable trajectory, respectively. Two trajectories of multimorbidity were identified: the health-related quality of life utility index decreased by 0.09 in the rapid increase trajectory compared with the slow increase trajectory. The results of the sensitivity analysis remained robust. Conclusion: The trajectory of the health-related quality of life utility index can be used to predict the risk of multimorbidity. Heterogeneous trajectories of chronic disease multimorbidity development lead to differential impacts on the health-related quality of life utility index.
Keywords: Quality of Life, multimorbidity, Longitudinal Studies, Rural Population, China
Received: 09 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Du, Qi, Wang, Ma, He, Hu, Chen and Qiao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hui Qiao, qiaohui71@163.com
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