Quality of Life in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: Application of WHOQoL-BREF Scale

Background: Diabetes is one of the most important chronic diseases which may have a negative effect on the quality of life (QoL) of diabetic patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate QoL in patients with type 2 diabetes living in rural regions of Neyshabur (a city in the northeast of Iran) as well as determine some factors associ-ated with it, by using the WHOQoL-BREFE scale. Methods and Materials: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 1847 patients with type 2 diabetes were studied in Neyshabur from April to July 2012. The Iranian ver-sion of the WHOQoL-BREF questionnaire was used to measure QoL. Linear Regres-sion Model was conducted to determine the relation between QoL of study population and various variables. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05 for all analyses. Data were analyzed using SPSS software ver16. Results: The mean age of the study population was 59.65 ± 12.3 yr (Range: 30-97 yr). The majority of participants were female (69.8%). The overall observed Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for WHOQoL-BREF was 0.93 and for each domain of it ranged from 0.69 to 0.86. The total mean score of WHOQoL-BREF was 12.18. The lowest and the highest mean scores were observed in Psychological health domain (11.73) and Social relationship domain (12.66), respectively. Backward multiple linear re-gression model revealed that Education levels, Marital Status and Household Income were significantly associated with all domains of WHOQoL-BREF (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The findings from this study appear that surveyed diabetic patients have WHOQoL-BREF scores that might be considered to indicate a moderate to low QoL, so it seems that providing international programs is necessary to improve QoL of them