[Quality of life and risk factors in patients with herpes zoster].

Objective

To evaluate the quality of life and influencing factors of patients with herpes zoster (HZ) seen in hospitals.

Methods

Based on Zoster Brief Pain Inventory (ZBPI) and Five-level EuroQol Five-dimensional Questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L), a cross-sectional survey was conducted to evaluate the pain severity and quality of life of 332 HZ cases seen in 22 hospitals of Lu'an City (Anhui Province), Zibo City (Shandong Province) and Tongchuan City (Shaanxi Province) from October to December 2021. The censored least absolute deviations (CLAD) model was used to analyze the related factors affecting the changes of patients' health utility values.

Results

The 45.5% of 332 HZ cases were male. The median (Q1,Q3) age was 59 (50, 68) years. 59.64% of them assessed by ZBPI had moderate to severe pain in the past 24 hours (worst pain score≥5), and that of PHN cases was 84.8%(39/46). 77.7% (258/332), 77.4% (257/332) and 74.1% (246/332) of all patients reported that pain interfered with sleep, mood and general activities, respectively. Aging [β40-49y (95%CI)=-0.11 (-0.15, -0.08); β50-59y (95%CI)=-0.03 (-0.05, 0.00); β60-69y (95%CI)=-0.09 (-0.12, -0.06); β70-90y(95%CI)=-0.16 (-0.19, -0.12)], working status (unemployed) [βfarmer (95%CI)=0.15 (0.13, 0.18); βretirees(95%CI)=0.21 (0.18, 0.24); βemployee (95%CI)=0.13 (0.10, 0.16) ], complications[βPHN (95%CI)=-0.08 (-0.13, -0.04); βother complications (95%CI)=-0.12 (-0.15, -0.08)], within 30 days after onset [β(95%CI)=-0.01 (-0.03, 0.01)] and treatment [βother complications (95%CI)=-0.09 (-0.11, -0.06)] were related factors for the decline of health utility value (all P values <0.05).

Conclusions

More than half of the patients with HZ had moderate to severe pain in the past 24 hours, which had a serious negative impact on the physical and mental health of the patients. Elderly patients, acute patients and patients with complications had lower health utility values and worse health status. We suggest that eligible people be vaccinated with HZ vaccine as soon as possible.