A Pilot Comparison between Caregiver's and Patient's Perceived Quality of Life in Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Introduction Chronic rhinosinusitis negatively impacts a patient's quality of life, but current studies only address the patient's perception of their disease. Caregivers living with the patient may have an alternative perception of the severity of the quality of life disturbance that patient's experience with chronic rhinosinusitis. Methods This was a prospective cohort study that enrolled patients with a confirmed chronic rhinosinusitis diagnosis who presented to clinic with a caregiver. At the initial visit, patients completed a Rhinosinusitis Disability Index. The caregiver completed a Rhinosinusitis Disability Index based on their perception of the patient's symptoms in addition to a Modified Caregiver Strain Index and a Short Form-36 to assess caregiving strain and overall health, respectively. Statistical analyses were performed with significance defined as P < 0.05 a priori. Results A total of 44 total subjects (22 patient and caregiver pairs) were enrolled. Patients reported a total Rhinosinusitis Disability Index of 36.8 (confidence interval: 26.9, 46.6), and caregivers reported a total Rhinosinusitis Disability Index of 50.4 [confidence interval: 38.8, 61.9] ( P = 0.02). The principal differences between patient and caregiver scores were noted in the emotional and physical domains ( P = 0.01 and P = 0.05, respectively). Only the functional domain was not statistically different ( P = 0.20). The patient's total Rhinosinusitis Disability Index is positively correlated with the caregiver's total Modified Caregiver Strain Index with a spearman coefficient of .60 (p ≤ 0.005). Conclusions Caregivers experience greater strain as the patient's quality of life declines. Caregivers perceive patients to have worse quality of life than patients report. Based on these data, caregivers may provide additional insight to the quality of life disturbance of chronic rhinosinusitis. In addition, the societal impact of chronic rhinosinusitis may be underestimated.