Assessment of Quality of Life in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

The aim of this chapter was to evaluate the QoL of patients with Diabetes Mellitus.

This observational, prospective study was conducted from August 2019 to January 2021 in Yashoda Hospital, Hyderabad, India.

Patients of either sex with
1year history of diabetes willing to give the consent were included in the study. Blood glucose levels (FBS, PPBS) and HbA1C were also measured and analysed. The patients were given the QOLID questionnaire, which included 34 items representing eight domains such as Role limitation due to physical health (RLPH), Physical endurance (PE), General health (GH), Treatment satisfaction (TS), Symptom botherness (SB), Financial worries (FW), Emotional/Mental health (E/MH), and Diet satisfaction (DS).

The study included 200 patients, 108 (54%) of which were males and 92 (46%) of which were females. The patients' average age was 58.5 years, with the majority being between the ages of 51 and 70 (73.5%). Patients who were older and females had lower QoL than others. The correlation between various categorical variables with that of scores of QoL in various domains was assessed, Age of the patients influenced QoL score in various domains like RLPH (p value-0.038), PE (p value-0.0183), and SB (p value-0.0002), Gender influenced Q0L score in domains like RLPH (p value-0.0008), PE (p value-0.0106), TS (p value-0.0005) and Educational Qualification influenced QOL score in RLPH (p value-0.0008),GH (p value-<0.0001), TS (p value-<0.0001), E/MH (p value-<0.0001).

The findings concluded that overall QoL was noticeably low in diabetic patients, particularly women and the elderly, indicating that diabetes management is not limited to treatment but also needs attention to patient QoL.