Publication:

An observational study to assess the health-related quality of life of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients attending a tertiary care hospital, Belagavi

Background ‘Quality of life’ (QOL) evaluation has emerged as an important outcome measure for chronic disease management. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has a number of chronic effects, including disability, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and blindness.

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in Non Communicable Disease (NCD) Clinic of tertiary care hospital Belagavi. The data was collected by interviewing 210 Type 2 DM patients, using a pre designed structured questionnaire. QOL was assessed by using World Health Organization Quality of life questionnaire – short version (WHOQOL-BREF).

Results Of the 210 study subject’s, majority of them were males. The mean and standard deviation scores for physical, psychological, social relationship and environmental domains were 62.36±15.09, 61.84±14.04, 54.92±18.27, 63.61±12.28 respectively. Overall 68.1% of them had good perceived QOL whereas measured QOL was good in only 48.6% of them. Per capita income was positively correlated whereas age and other continuous variables like blood pressure, random blood sugar etc. were negatively correlated with all the four domains of WHOQOL-BREF.

Conclusions More than half of the study participants (51.4%) had poor QOL. DM had significantly affected Hr-QOL especially the social relationship domain. Participants with older age, obesity, longer duration of DM had poor QOL.