Prevalence and risks of tuberculosis multimorbidity in low-income and middle-income countries: a meta-review

Objectives Co-occurrence of tuberculosis (TB) with other chronic conditions (TB multimorbidity) increases complexity of management and adversely affects health outcomes. We aimed to map the prevalence of the co-occurrence of one or more chronic conditions in people with TB and associated health risks by systematically reviewing previously published systematic reviews. Design Systematic review of systematic reviews (meta-review). Setting Low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Papers We searched in Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Social Sciences Citation Index, Science Citation Index, Emerging Sources Citation Index and Conference Proceedings Citation Index, and the WHO Global Index Medicus from inception to 23 October 2020, contacted authors and reviewed reference lists. Pairs of independent reviewers screened titles, abstracts and full texts, extracted data and assessed the included reviews’ quality (AMSTAR2). We included systematic reviews reporting data for people in LMICs with TB multimorbidity and synthesised them narratively. We excluded reviews focused on children or specific subgroups (eg, incarcerated people). Primary and secondary outcome measures Prevalence or risk of TB multimorbidity (primary); any measure of burden of disease (secondary). Results From the 7557 search results, 54 were included, representing >6 296 000 people with TB. We found that the most prevalent conditions in people with TB were depression (45.19%, 95% CI: 38.04% to 52.55%, 25 studies, 4903 participants, I 2 =96.28%, high quality), HIV (31.81%, 95% CI: 27.83% to 36.07%, 68 studies, 62 696 participants, I 2 =98%, high quality) and diabetes mellitus (17.7%, 95% CI: 15.1% to 20.0.5%, 48 studies, 48,036 participants, I 2 =98.3%, critically low quality). Conclusions We identified several chronic conditions that co-occur in a significant proportion of people with TB. Although limited by varying quality and gaps in the literature, this first meta-review of TB multimorbidity highlights the magnitude of additional ill health burden due to chronic conditions on people with TB. Prospero registration number CRD42020209012.