Background: Diabetes is a chronic disease requiring frequent monitoring that may be accompanied by considerable quality of life (QOL) burden. Low- and middle-income countries such as Swaziland are facing a double disease burden exacerbated by the high prevalence of infectious diseases. This study aimed to understand the QOL and its correlates in diabetic outpatients in Swaziland.
Methods: Participants were consecutively recruited during their routine visits to a referral hospital in Swaziland. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with outpatients using the Diabetes-39 questionnaire to measure their QOL. Raw scores were transformed to a standard domain-specific score using linear transformation with scores ranging from 0 (lowest impact) to 100 (highest impact).
Results: Among the 340 participants in this cross-sectional study anxiety and worry was the most affected QOL domain. In multiple linear regression analyses, the presence of complications and/or comorbidities, low income, limited education and being on insulin therapy, showed higher impacts of diabetes on the participants' QOL.
Conclusions: The high impact of diabetes on anxiety and worry QOL score highlights the need to address diabetic patients' psychological wellbeing in the clinical management of diabetes. An integrated diabetes care program that takes into account the impacts of sociodemographic and clinical factors on QOL may improve the QOL of diabetic patients.
Keywords: Comorbidity; Diabetes; Quality of life; Swaziland.
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