Ethnicity and Diabetic Quality-of-Life

Multiple studies have addressed ethnic diabetes mellitus (diabetes) care inequalities. But few have assessed whether ethnicity influences patient perceptions of diabetic quality-of-life (QOL). The authors therefore designed a cross-sectional study to quantify the overall QOL associated with diabetes in consecutive white (Caucasian) and black (African-American) participants.

A validated, time tradeoff utility instrument was consecutively administered by interview to 518 white and 92 African-American, adult, diabetic participants in an ambulatory setting. The instrument calculates QOL by quantifying a utility associated with their condition, with utility anchors of 1.00 (perfect health for that condition permanently) and 0.00 (death). Utility acquisition as used herein, first requires asking participants to estimate their theoretical remaining time of life, then subtracting from 1.00 the maximum proportion of their estimated remaining time of life they would be willing to hypothetically trade-if any-to permanently cure their condition (diabetes). Thus, a diabetic participant estimating 20 remaining years of life who will theoretically trade 3 of those years to cure their diabetes, has a diabetes-associated utility of [1.00 - (3/20) =)] 0.85. The closer the utility is to 1.00, the better the QOL associated with a condition, while the closer it is to 0.00, the poorer the associated QOL.

The mean diabetes utility (QOL) for the white, diabetic participant cohort was 0.87, while that for the black cohort was 0.86 (P = 0.95). The ethnic cohorts were matched for age (P = 0.70), sex (P = 0.64), level of education (P = 0.29), known years of having diabetes (P = 0.10), insulin use (P = 0.23), type of diabetes (P = 0.27) and the number of associated comorbidities (P = 0.23). There was no difference between the cohorts for the presence and severity of the individual, diabetes-related comorbidities of retinopathy (P = 0.15), nephropathy (P = 0.24), neuropathy (P = 0.52), depression (P = 0.23) and heart disease (P = 0.32). Multiple linear regression integrating both cohorts revealed no effect of ethnicity upon diabetes utility (P = 0.60).

Diabetes-related QOL was similar in matched cohorts of adult white and black participants with diabetes mellitus. This study suggests utilities for diabetes mellitus can be used in economic analyses without adjustment for white and black ethnicity.