Abstract
People with asthma suffer from impaired health-related quality of life (HRQL), but the determinants of HRQL among asthmatics are not completely understood. The aim of this investigation was to study determinants of low HRQL in asthmatics and to study whether the determinants of HRQL differ between sexes and age groups. A cohort of three age groups in Sweden was investigated in 1990 using a questionnaire with focus on respiratory symptoms. To study quality of life, the generic instrument Gothenburg Quality of Life was used. The participants were also investigated with interviews, spirometry, and allergy testing. Asthma was diagnosed in 616 subjects. Fifty-eight per cent (n = 359) of the subjects were women; and 24% were smokers, 22% ex-smokers, and 54% were non-smokers. Women were more likely than men to report poor health-related quality of life. Respiratory symptoms severity was another independent determinant of a lower quality of life as well as airway responsiveness to irritants. Current and former smokers also reported lower quality of life. Finally, absenteeism from school and work was associated with lower quality of life. Factors such as sex, smoking habits, airway responsiveness to irritants, respiratory symptom severity, allergy, and absenteeism from school and work were associated with low HRQL in asthmatics.
Highlights
Health-related quality of life (HRQL) assessment is increasingly used as an outcome measure in asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases
Neither age nor gender seemed to modify the effect of hyperresponsiveness to irritants on quality of life (P = 0.82 and 0.88, respectively). In this cross-sectional study of determinants of quality of life in people with clinically verified asthma, the results show that female sex, smoking habits, higher airway responsiveness to irritants, respiratory symptom severity, positive skin prick test, and absenteeism from work/school were significantly associated with health-related quality of life
To our knowledge this is the first study of determinants of quality of life in asthmatics using the Gothenburg Quality of Life instrument
Summary
Health-related quality of life (HRQL) assessment is increasingly used as an outcome measure in asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases. Asthma exerts a substantial adverse impact on the lives of many people with this condition [3]. Reduced HRQL has been associated with female sex, young age, low lung function, low educational level, region of living, co-morbidity, use of inhaled bronchodilators and corticosteroids, wheezing, chronic cough, sputum production, and bronchial hyper-responsiveness [5,6]. Our results from previous analyses of HRQL in asthmatics show that subjects with asthma had a higher level of non-respiratory symptoms and that subjects with low HRQL at baseline were more likely to develop asthma at followup 13 years later [7]
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