Multimorbidity networks associated with frailty among middle aged and older people with HIV.

OBJECTIVE: People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (PWH) have increased prevalence of multimorbidity and frailty at younger ages compared to the general population. This study investigated individual and combinatorial effects of neuropsychiatric and medical comorbidities as predictors of frailty in PWH.

DESIGN: Analysis of data from the National NeuroAIDS Tissue Consortium, a longitudinal observational cohort.

METHODS: 524 PWH over age 40 were classified using Fried's Frailty criteria. Twelve comorbidities were documented from longitudinal data and associations between individual and co-occurring comorbidities with frailty were assessed using weighted network and logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS: At frailty assessment between 2015-2020, median age was 61 years, 76% were male, 94% were on ART, 73% had two or more comorbidities, 24% were frail, and 52% were prefrail. Among individual comorbidities, highest odds of frailty were in participants with depressive symptoms (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.48 [2.22-5.46]]), followed by bone disease and COPD (2.47 [1.28-4.72] and 2.13 [1.36-3.34], respectively). Among co-occurring comorbidities, highest odds of frailty were in participants having depressive symptoms with diabetes, hypertension, or obesity (aORs [95% CIs] 5.29 [2.32-12.08], 5.21 [2.65-10.40], 4.85 [2.39-9.95], respectively), cognitive impairment with diabetes or renal disease, (2.81 [1.38-5.68] and 2.53 [1.26-5.03], respectively), renal disease with cardiovascular disease (2.81 [1.32-6.01]), and diabetes with obesity (2.76 [1.39-5.45]).

CONCLUSIONS: Co-occurrence of depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, diabetes, or renal disease with other medical conditions substantially increases odds of frailty in older PWH. Identifying and treating these comorbidities may help to reduce functional decline with aging in PWH.