Selected aspects of quality of life and household cost of care among patients with genital warts attending selected STD clinics in the Western Province of Sri Lanka

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Introduction: Genital warts being a common STI in the country, its impact on quality of life, and cost of care associated with it need to be studied within the current STI context in Sri Lanka. Objective: To assess selected aspects of disease specific quality of life and its associated factors, response to treatment and household cost of care in-patient with genital warts attending selected STD clinics in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. Method: Study consisted of descriptive study of 240 patients with genital warts and a longitudinal follow up component to assess response to treatment, disease specific quality of life and household costing associated with genital warts by an interviewer administered questionnaire. Disease specific quality of life among patient with genital warts was assessed with a questionnaire validated by an expert panel. It consisted of 21 items that assess physical, emotional and sexual dimensions separately. Result: Study sample consisted of 151(62.9%) males and most (93.8%, n=225) of participants were Sinhalese. Majority of participants (79.9%, n=192) were from age group between 20 to 39 years. More of females (78.7%, n=70) in the sample were married than males (46.4% , n=70). Cauliflower type of genital warts were the most common type (56.2% , n=135) and prepuce and labia majora were the commonly involved sites. There was no statistically significant difference in response to treatment among different treatment. It showed that physical discomfort caused by genital warts and treatment in subsequent visits had not affected their daily activities. However, some of the items in emotional and sexual dimension were affected significantly to most of the participants. Being a male, unmarried, and an idea of having children in future showed statistically significant lower median scores for emotional dimension. They showed similar statistically significant lower scores for sexual dimension except for being unmarried. Median spending for a clinic day among males was Rs 175 and among females was Rs 441.56. Median total time spent by males for complete cure was 35 hours with IC range of 21 - 49 hours compared to 35 hours with IC range of 21 to 56 hours among females. Conclusion: Patients with genital warts showed significant impairment of disease specific quality of life in relation to emotional and sexual dimensions. It was clear that treatment of genital warts is associated with considerable time loss and expenditure to patients.