Adults' experience of living with multimorbidity: a qualitative systematic review protocol

The objective of the review is to synthesize the qualitative research literature on the experiences of adults living with multimorbidity.

Persons living with two or more chronic health conditions, known as multimorbidity, is a global health problem in countries of all income levels. Multimorbidity presents an ever-increasing resource and financial burden for health care systems and similarly challenges those living with multiple health conditions because of the complexity of their health and treatment requirements. Overall, persons with multimorbid conditions experience a high risk of mortality and a lower quality of life. Understanding the adult experience of multimorbidity is important for creating and implementing health care that meets the needs of individuals living with the burden of multiple chronic health conditions.

The systematic review will include published peer-reviewed and unpublished English-language studies from 2000 to 2020 that provide qualitative evidence of adults' (18+ years of age) experiences of living with multimorbidity.

CINAHL with full text, Cochrane, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Consumer Health Database, Scopus, and ScienceDirect journals and books will be searched. Reference lists of included studies will also be cross-checked with search outcomes to identify additional studies. Sources of gray literature will also be searched for unpublished studies. The critical appraisal of selected studies and the extraction of data will be independently undertaken by two reviewers using JBI methods. The findings will be pooled using meta-aggregation to produce comprehensive synthesized findings. A ConQual Summary of Findings will also be presented.

PROSPERO CRD42020152038.