| Summary: | The presence of multiple chronic conditions (i.e., multimorbidity) increases the risk of hospitalisation in older adults. We aimed to examine the association between different multimorbidity patterns and unplanned hospitalisations over 5 years. To that end, 2,250 community-dwelling individuals aged 60 years and older from the Swedish National Study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K) were studied. Participants were grouped into six multimorbidity patterns using a fuzzy c-means cluster analysis. The associations between patterns and outcomes were tested using Cox models and negative binomial models. After 5 years, 937 (41.6%) participants experienced at least one unplanned hospitalisation. Compared to participants in the <i>unspecific</i> multimorbidity pattern, those in the <i>cardiovascular diseases, anaemia and dementia</i> pattern, the <i>psychiatric disorders</i> pattern and the <i>metabolic and sleep disorders</i> pattern presented with a higher hazard of first unplanned hospitalisation (hazard ratio range: 1.49–2.05; <i>p</i> < 0.05 for all), number of unplanned hospitalisations (incidence rate ratio (IRR) range: 1.89–2.44; <i>p</i> < 0.05 for all), in-hospital days (IRR range: 1.91–3.61; <i>p</i> < 0.05 for all), and 30-day unplanned readmissions (IRR range: 2.94–3.65; <i>p</i> < 0.05 for all). Different multimorbidity patterns displayed a differential association with unplanned hospital care utilisation. These findings call for a careful primary care follow-up of older adults with complex multimorbidity patterns.
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