Health-related quality of life in diabetes mellitus patients in primary health care

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and sociodemographic and clinical factors in patients with diabetes mellitus, also comparing with Spanish population-based reference values.

Method: Cross-sectional descriptive-analytical observational study through nonprobability sampling on diabetic patients from San Roque Primary Health Centre (Badajoz, Spain), using a questionnaire regarding sociodemographic and diabetes care data, SF-36 and Duke-UNC questionnaires, and clinical history data.

Results: Sixty patients (55% women) fundamentally with type 2 diabetes and a mean age of 68.67 ± 11.09 years were studied. Women older than 75 presented poorer HRQoL than their reference group. Women showed worse HRQoL than men. Age, evolution of diabetes, presence of acute and chronic complications, and comorbidities, pharmacological treatment, and glycaemic control affect HRQoL in these patients. Living alone, having a low socioeconomic status, and needing help with diabetes-related self-care can negatively affect quality of life.

Conclusions: HRQoL assessment allows us to detect alterations in the different domains and perform an early intervention. This way, we can incorporate these aspects into the nursing evaluation and interventions in the nursing care plan; allowing us to develop individualized care strategies and diabetes education programmes that contribute to improving HRQoL in patients with diabetes.

Keywords: Calidad de vida; Comorbidity; Comorbilidad; Complicaciones de la diabetes; Diabetes complications; Diabetes mellitus; Polifarmacia; Polypharmacy; Quality of life.