Background & aim: Quality of life may be reduced in patients with chronic liver diseases. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of chronic viral liver disease on health-related quality of life (HRQOL).
Patients and methods: Quality of life was prospectively investigated in 227 patients with chronic viral liver disease and 75 controls. The generic Short Form 12 questionnaire was applied to measure the HRQOL: Mental and physical component scores were expressed as numeric and categorical values (presence/absence of disability). The electronic database (SPSS for Windows) was used for statistical analysis with 95% confidence intervals.
Results: Mental and physical numeric and categorical scores for the absence of disability were significantly worse in patients compared with controls. Patients were a negative predictive factor for the absence of disability on both mental and physical components while the physical component was the significant factor in multivariate regression analysis (p =0.000). There was no difference in HRQOL scores among patients with hepatitis C or B virus infection. Mental and physical numeric scores were lower in patients with cirrhosis. Liver cirrhosis predicted lower components of the absence of disability in comparison to chronic hepatitis more influencing the physical component (p =0.003).
Conclusions: Chronic viral liver disease reduces and predicts a lower quality of life in comparison to a healthy population impairing more the physical component. Hepatitis viruses do not influence differently the quality of life. Liver cirrhosis has a higher negative impact on the quality of life than chronic hepatitis, especially relating to a physical component.