Quality of life in patients with PD and their caregiving spouses: A view from both sides

In contrast to the wealth of studies on quality of life (QoL) in patients with Parkinson's disease, the number of reports on QoL in caregivers, especially partners as primary caregivers, is fairly limited. In this report we wanted to investigate if patients and caregiving partners are able to reliably estimate each other's present and former QoL.

We used a visual analogue scale in order to obtain the patients' and their partners' scores of present and former QoL. Moreover we studied correlations of these mutual estimates with demographic variables and measures of patient dependency.

As expected both patients and partners considered their QoL as decreased when compared to former QoL. Interestingly both patients and partners were able to reliably estimate each other's QoL. Patients judged their own former QoL and that of their partner as lower as did their partners. All QoL measures were significantly correlated to measures of mental state and patient dependency. There was a negative correlation with increasing age but not with disease duration.

These results indicate the validity of using proxy information by a caregiving partner in estimations of QoL.