HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN DIABETIC-PATIENTS MEASURED BY THE NOTTINGHAM HEALTH PROFILE

The aim of the present study was to assess the health related quality of life of adult diabetic patients using the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) as a measure. A further aim was to describe different Quality o f Life (QOL) outcomes in different treatment groups of diabetes. The t arget population consisted of all registered adult (18 years or older) diabetic patients (n = 2519) in the district of Oulu, a city of 10000 0 inhabitants in Northern Finland. All these persons were invited to p articipate in a screening examination for diabetic retinopathy, and th e NHP questionnaire was mailed along with this invitation. A total of 1804 patients (72 %) returned the NHP questionnaire when they came to the fundus photography session. The data were analysed by using mean v alues of NHP dimensions with the 95 % confidence intervals (CI) and th e logistic regression analysis to predict the risk (OR) for having at least one health problem in a particular dimension. The results indica ted that patients with tablet treatment had significantly lower QOL le vels than the 'general population' in all NHP dimensions. The diet tre atment group patients had lower QOL levels than the 'general populatio n' only in the 'Sleep' and 'Social isolation' dimensions. The diet gro up had a significantly better QOL level in all six dimensions of QOL o f NHP than the tablet treatment or combined treatment (patients treate d with tablets and insulin) groups. The tablet treatment and combined treatment groups did not differ significantly in any of the NHP dimens ions. The logistic models testing the presence of at least one problem in the NHP dimensions showed that the number of other diseases increa sed the risk of having QOL problems in all dimensions and duration of the diabetes and the age of the patient had risk increasing effects in four NHP dimensions while the gender had only a small effect on the Q OL in diabetic patients. The study shows that the NHP questionnaire as a general measure of the QOL reveals differences in the QOL between t he different treatment groups and between diabetic patients and genera l population.