Do Clinical And Psychosocial Factors Affect Health-Related Quality of Life in Adolescents with Chronic Diseases?

Living with a chronic disease in adolescence can have an impact on the perception of Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL). Facing the increasing relevance of psychosocial dimensions and also considering the interaction with clinical variables, this study aimed to measure the impact of clinical and psychosocial factors (separated and combined) on adolescent’s reported HRQoL.A cross-sectional study was conducted in a clinical population of 135 adolescents with chronic diseases (n=70 boys), average age: 14±1.5 years old. Through a self-reported questionnaire, HRQoL (KIDSCREEN-10), socio-demographic, clinical variables (diagnostic; time of diagnosis; self-perceived pain; disease severity proxy; disease-related medication intake/use of special equipment), and psychosocial variables (psychosomatic health; resilience; self-regulation; social support) were assessed.Separately, clinical and psychosocial variables showed a significant impact in HRQoL, 27.9% and 62.4%, respectively. Once combined, the previously identified variables had a significant impact (64.2%), but a different contribution from clinical and psychosocial variables was revealed: when first entering the clinical variables (model 1) the variance only reaches 30%, and much more from psychosocial variables seems to explain the total (64.2%); inversely, when first integrating psychosocial variables (model 2), the clinical ones added a small significance to the model (0.6%).The present study underlined the association of clinical (“disease-related”) and psychosocial (“non-disease-related”) factors on HRQoL. Furthermore, it reinforced the need to focus more on psychosocial dimensions, highlighted the potential role of psychosomatic health, resilience, self-regulation and social support. It can be suggested that the identification of impaired psychosocial domains may help professionals to better plan, and achieve effective interventions of psychosocial care.

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Relationship between Demographic, Clinical, Psychosocial Factors and Health-related Quality of Life among Persons with Epilepsy in Zaria Northern Nigeria

Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research ◽

10.9734/jammr/2020/v32i730453 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 73-82

Author(s):

Emmanuel Uzodinma Iwuozo ◽

Reginald Onyeadumarakwe Obiako ◽

Terhemen Joseph Igbudu ◽

Adesola Ogunniyi

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Social Support ◽

Marital Status ◽

Psychosocial Factors ◽

Significant Relationship ◽

Health Related Quality ◽

Monthly Income ◽

Related Quality ◽

Health Related

Introduction: There is a growing global interest on the effect of epilepsy on the subjective health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of the sufferers. Several demographic, clinical, and psychosocial factors have been attributed as contributory to the poor HRQoL in patients (persons) with epilepsy (PWE). Aim: This study evaluated the relationship between demographic, clinical and psychosocial characteristics of PWE and their HRQoL. Study Design: A cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Study carried out at Neurology clinic of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Kaduna State, Nigeria from September 2013 to December 2014. Methodology: Consecutively presenting PWE on follow-up for at least 1 year, 18 years and above were recruited after obtaining ethical approval and informed consent. Structured questionnaire and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-Bref) instrument were utilized for the study. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 17 with p-value set at less than 0.05. Results: The participants were one hundred with median age of 29 years. The factors found to have significant relationship with HRQoL were demographic variables like marital status (F = 3.250, p = 0.025) and monthly income (t = - 2.883; p= 0.005); psychosocial factors like presence of perceived stigma or discrimination (χ2 = 2.427, p = 0.017), presence of depressive symptom in the preceding month (χ2 = 3.164, p = 0.002) and availability of social support (χ2 = 3.328, P = 0.001). There was no significant relationship found between clinical factors and HRQoL of PWE (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The demographic factors (marital status and monthly income) and psychosocial factors (stigma, depression and social support) had a significant relationship with HRQoL in PWE. There is a need to offer evidence-based and focused care to the sufferers of this illness.

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