Assessment of Health related Quality of Life in Tuberculosis Patients of South India

Health related quality of life is a multidimensional concept that comprises domains of physical, mental, emotional and social functioning. Considering the fact quality of life, TB patients had poor quality of life compared to general population. Objective: To evaluate health related quality of life of Pulmonary TB patients and also factors affecting the poor quality of life. Methods: This was a prospective and observational study of quality of life of tuberculosis patients admitted to the Tuberculosis ward of Government Infectious disease hospital, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India from January 2017 to August 2018(twenty months). The validated and authorized Rand SF-36v2 was used to measure patient’s own perception on their health status and functioning. Results: Among all patients, 256 (79.01%) were males and 68 (20.98%) were females. The values of PCS and MCS at base level, after initial phase and end of the treatment were 33.83±9.84 vs 38.10±8.62, 61.74±12.82 vs 46.67±10.38 and 69.49±12.66 vs 55.87±8.24 respectively. It was observed that among all patients elderly patients had greatly affected in domains such as RP (39.38), PF (40.31), VT (51.03) and have significantly reduced PCS (49.70) and MCS (50.91) scores. There was a strong association between smoking and reduced QOL scores. Patients who were on Cat-I treatment had better quality of life scores than patients on Cat-II treatment. Cat-II patients were significantly affected in physical functioning (PF:47). There was significant difference between HIV negative and HIV positive patients in PCS (51.40±12.29 vs 37.83±9.40) and MCS (62.57±12.71 vs 43.71±7.81). Conclusion: Anti-tubercular treatment had encompassing impacts and positive effect on patients’ quality of life