PMU100 Health-Related Quality of Life of Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension Patients in Slovenia

Abstract

The objective of our research was to estimate health-related quality of life of patients with type 2 diabetes and/or hypertension in Slovenia. A survey was conducted on a convenience sample of 182 patients with hypertension and 130 patients with diabetes from Health centre in Ljubljana. The generic questionnaire measuring health-related quality of life (HRQoL) EQ-5D-5L was used. To measure disease specific HRQoL, questionnaires Minichal-16 item for hypertension and DCAI-R for type 2 diabetes were chosen. The research was conducted within the EU-funded H2020 SCUBY project. Minichal-16 was filled out by 182 patients with hypertension. The average QoL score per item on Minichal was 1.44 (SD 0.685) on a scale from 1 to 4 (4: the worst QoL), indicating high QoL of patients. Similarly, high HRQoL was shown by EQ-5D-5L, where the average index score was 0.784 and the average VAS was 74.6. The most affected health dimension in hypertension patients was pain/discomfort, where 52.7% of patients reported problems. The correlation between both HRQoL questionnaires is moderate (-0.636). 130 patients with type 2 diabetes filled out 7 item DCAI-R and EQ-5D-5L questionnaires. The average score per item was 2.39 (standard deviation 2.39) on a scale from 1 to 5 (where 5 indicated the worst HRQoL). EQ-5D-5L results showed the average index score of 0.775 and the average VAS of 75.3. The correlation between both HRQoL questionnaires is low (-0.277). HRQoL of patients with hypertension is high as shown by disease specific as well as generic instruments. While generic instrument showed high HRQoL of type 2 diabetes patients, the disease specific questionnaire showed lower QoL. It is important to look at the dimensions to define measures in order to improve HRQoL of chronic patients more specifically.