Patient-reported control of chronic rhinosinusitis symptoms is positively associated with general health-related quality of life.

Abstract

In chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), although patient-reported severity of sinonasal symptoms is significantly associated with diminishment of patients' general health-related quality of life (QOL), it remains unclear whether patient-perceived control of CRS symptomatology is associated with patients' QOL. In this study, we sought to determine the association between patient-perceived control of CRS symptomatology and QOL. Prospective cross-sectional study. Academic, tertiary care centre. A cohort of 166 adults with CRS who were asked to categorise their level of CRS symptom control as "Not at all," "A little," "Somewhat," "Very" and "Completely." General health-related QOL, as reflected by the five-dimensional EuroQol quality of life survey-derived visual analogue scale (EQ5D-VAS) and health utility values (EQ5D-HUV). We found that higher EQ5D-VAS scores were associated with CRS patients who classified their symptom control as "Very" (adjusted β=15.74, 95% CI: 5.44 to 26.04, P=.003) and "Completely" (adjusted β=14.24, 95% CI: 2.98 to 25.52, P=.014) compared to patients who classified their symptom control as "Not at all." This was also true for higher EQ5D-HUV which was associated with patient-reported CRS symptom control of "A little" (adjusted β=0.10, 95% CI: 0.01 to 0.18, P=.024), "Somewhat" (adjusted β=0.08, 95% CI: 0.00 to 0.17, P=.049), "Very" (adjusted β=0.13, 95% CI: 0.05 to 0.21, P=.002) and "Completely" (adjusted β=0.18, 95% CI: 0.09 to 0.27, P<.001). Higher levels of patient-reported CRS symptom control are therefore associated with better QOL. These findings suggest that CRS symptom control should be targeted for improving patients' QOL.