A Cross-sectional Study of QOL of Diabetic Patients at Tertiary Care Hospitals in Delhi

According to WHO estimates India will be the global capital of diabetes by 2025, accounting for 57.2 million diabetics. Worsening the situation is the fact that diabetes affects the economically productive age-group (45-65 years) in developing countries.

To measure quality of life (QOL) and study the clinical profiles and associated sociodemographic factors affecting diabetic patients aged 20 years and above.

We conducted a hospital-based cross-sectional study using a generic instrument, Short-Form 36 (SF-36 of the Medical Outcome Study Group) to measure QOL of diabetic subjects aged >/=20 years. Two hundred and sixty diabetics, including 91 males and 169 females, were selected from the clinics of SSK Hospital and Dr RML Hospital of New Delhi. Data was analysed using SPSS for Windows, version 12.

The mean age of the respondents was 49.7 years, with 80% of respondents being in the age-group of 40-69 years. The majority (52.1%) of female respondents were illiterate and 91.1% were economically dependent. Of the male respondents, 65.9% were skilled workers. Substance abuse was present among 41.8% male subjects. Type 2 diabetes was the commonest, with 94.6% of the subjects having this form. The mean duration of diabetes was 6.96 +/- 6.08 years. Oral hypoglycemic agents were being taken by 70.77% of the respondents. Among the diabetics the most common comorbidity was hypertension (30.8%) and the commonest complication was neuropathy (26.2%). We calculated the body mass index (BMI) of all subjects and found that, 46.2% of the male and 59.8% of the female respondents were either overweight or obese. As predicted by the waist/hip ratio (WHR), 53.8% of the male and 66.9% of the female respondents had high risk for CHD. Regular physical activity was undertaken by less than half of the subjects (46.5%). Out of eight domains of QOL in the SF-36, the two most affected were 'General Health' and 'Vitality.' Overall, males had higher QOL scores; this was found to be statistically significant (P = 0.0001). SF-36 and its eight domain scores had significant association with socioeconomic status, education, and habitual physical activity.

Diabetes had an adverse effect on the QOL of these study subjects. Females had a significantly poorer QOL than males. The domains most affected were 'General Health' and 'Vitality.' Poor scores in the QOL domains were significantly associated with lower socioeconomic status, lesser education, and lesser habitual physical activity.