Predictive Model of Quality of Life in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is a chronic, progressive, and disabling neurodegenerative disease which evolves until the end of life and triggers different mood and organic alterations that influence health-related quality of life. The objective of our study was to identify the factors that negatively impact the quality of life of patients with Parkinson's disease and construct a predictive model of health-related quality of life in these patients.

An analytical, prospective observational study was carried out, including Parkinson's patients at different stages in the Albacete Health Area. The sample consisted of 155 patients (T0) who were followed up at one (T1) and two years (T2). The instruments used were a purpose-designed data collection questionnaire and the "Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire" (PDQ-39), with a global index where a higher score indicates a worse quality of life. A multivariate analysis was performed by multiple linear regression at T0. Next, the model's predictive capacity was evaluated at T1 and T2 using the area under the ROC curve (AUROC).

Predictive factors were: sex, living in a residence, using a cane, using a wheelchair, having a Parkinson's stage of HY > 2, having Alzheimer's disease or a major neurocognitive disorder, having more than five non-motor symptoms, polypharmacy, and disability greater than 66%. This model showed good predictive capacity at one year and two years of follow-up, with an AUROC of 0.89 (95% CI: 0.83-0.94) and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.76-0.89), respectively.

A predictive model constructed with nine variables showed a good discriminative capacity to predict the quality of life of patients with Parkinson's disease at one and two years of follow-up.