Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) among patients with lymphatic filariasis.

Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) measures assesses a person’s perception about their physical, mental and social well being in their daily life. Lymphatic Filariasis is a major public health problem and the two major chronic manifestations are lymphoedema and hydrocele. The objective of the present study was to assess the HRQoL among filarial lymphoedema patients and to compare with age, gender and occupation matched normal individuals. A total of 239 filarial lymphoedema patients and 204 normal subjects were participated in the study. The HRQoL was assessed by using Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire. The mean age was marginally higher among the patients with higher grades of lymphoedema (P>0.05), and the average duration of disease was significantly higher (P<0.05) among higher grades of lymphoedema. The HRQoL scores were found to be significantly lower (P<0.05) among the lymphoedema patients than the normals. The mean HRQoL scores in lymphoedema patients were half or less than the half of the mean score in normal subjects. The HRQoL was found to be significantly lower (P<0.05) among the patients with Adenolymphangitis (ADL) and the HRQoL scores was found to be significantly decreased (P<0.05) with the progression of the diseases. The existing morbidity management programme should broaden its domain by incorporating programmes to improve the quality of life in all the aspects such as physical, mental and social well being of the patients. An effective mechanism should also be evolved to reach the programme to all the patients to improve its coverage and consumption.