M5 · Clinical Practice
M5
Slide 12
CONTENT
15 MIN
Multimorbidity and Dual Diagnosis
When Mental, Physical and Social Instability Interact
In people experiencing homelessness, mental illness, physical health conditions, and social instability rarely occur in isolation — they interact with and compound one another.
1. Beyond Single Diagnoses
In clinical practice with people experiencing homelessness, single diagnoses are rare.
More common is multimorbidity — the coexistence of:

Severe mental illness

Substance use disorder

Chronic physical illness

Cognitive impairment

Social instability

In this context, diagnosis is only the beginning.
The real challenge is interaction.
A person does not experience:
Depression
separately from
diabetes
PTSD
separately from
hypertension
Alcohol use
separately from
liver disease
Chronic pain
separately from
opioid dependence
These conditions amplify one another. Integrated care must therefore address interaction, not isolated pathology.