[Quality of life evaluation in the patient with allergic rhinits]

The introduction of the evaluation tools, such as the quality of life-questionnaires, allows to assess how functional alterations due to an illness affect the patient's life.

To know the emotional, social and occupational state of allergic rhinitis patients.

Quality of life questionnaires were applied once to a group of 50 patients with allergic rhinitis diagnosis from the clinic immunology and allergy service, from May to August 2002.

Female sex was the predominant (64%), with ages from 8 to 74 years (average of 36.9 years). In women severe rhinitis was observed in 37.5%, and in men mild rhinitis was found in 61%. The main occupations were: student (20%), administrative (20%) and teacher (18%). Nasal symptoms appeared when doing the following activities: housework in 18 cases (36%), reading in 10 cases (20%) and house maintenance in 5 cases (10%). In the analysis done to know the usefulness of the questionnaire a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 85% were found.

The quality of life was found to be altered, affected and closely related to the presentation of nasal symptoms when doing different daily-life activities, which produces dissatisfaction in patients.