Health Related Quality of Life among type 2 Diabetic Male Patients and its Correlates -Results from Primary Health Care Centre.

BACKGROUND

Risk of diabetes continues to increase worldwide due to population growth, urbanization. Little is known regarding the health related quality of life (HRQoL) among diabetes mellitus in India. Identifying factors influencing HRQoL could help us to form strategies for better control of diabetes.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

To measure the quality of life among men with type 2 diabetes mellitus residing in the rural field practice area of a teaching hospital in Coimbatore and to determine sociodemographic as well as diabetes and sexual related characteristics associated with poor quality of life. This study was conducted in the rural field catchment area by enrolling 443 adult males with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The data was collected from the blood investigation reports and by face-to-face interviews using a Semi-structured. Quality of Life was assessed using the European quality of life five-dimension scale (EQ 5D 3L). A question on erectile dysfunction was also included. Logistic regression models were used to investigate the factors associated with it.

RESULTS

Patients reported "some or extreme problems" most frequently in pain/discomfort (34.8%), and in anxiety/depression (27.7%) dimensions. Older age, long duration of diabetes, having co-morbid conditions were significantly associated (P < 0.05) with mobility, self-care, usual activities, and pain/discomfort of EQ 5D in the multivariate regression model. It is also observed that 60.9% of these patients had erectile dysfunction, which was found significantly associated with increasing blood sugar values (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The study results indicated that patients with diabetes suffer from a relatively poor quality of life. More attention should be paid to the determinants of the poor quality of life. It is recommended that factors leading to derangement of quality of life as well as causing sexual dysfunction have to be addressed by the primary health care providers for the improvement of the quality of life of diabetic patients attending the primary health care center.