PREVALENCE OF COMORBIDITY AMONG INCIDENT OSTEOARTHRITIS PATIENTS AND MATCHED CONTROLS

Purpose: Comorbidity has a negative impact on quality of life, mortality, health care utilization, and subsequent health care costs. The presence of multiple (discordant) diseases in one person can result in conflicting treatment plans, making comorbidity difficult to manage. Osteoarthritis (OA) is among the leading chronic diseases to cause pain and disability, yet relatively little research is done into its comorbidity patterns. If certain comorbidities occur more often prior to diagnosis of OA, this could indicate that they contributed to development of OA or shared certain risk factors.