Abstract

Background: Health-related quality of life (QOL) is considered as an important component in the diabetes care and management; unfortunately, assessments of diabetes interventions focus mainly on glycemic control with limited consid- eration of QOL.
Objective: Assessment of QOL among diabetic patients registered in primary health centers of Udupi taluk, Karnataka.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was done using, Short-Form (SF) 36 version2 to measure QOL among diabetic patients. Total numbers of participants included 138 subjects with diabetes. Participants were selected from the primary health centers located in the Udupi taluk. Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 15.00.
Results: The mean age of the study participants was 57.40 ± 11.10 years and the mean duration of diabetes was 9.29 ± 6.32 years. Physical activity (>30 minutes) per day was followed by 33.3% study participants. The overall SF-36 score was 43.12 ± 7.0; the domains of the SF-36 score were the following: physical functioning with 40.57 ± 6.34, role physical 44.20 ± 9.27, body pain 43.09 ± 7.91, general health 42.48 ± 7.33, vitality 45.13 ± 5.59, social functioning 42.91 ± 6.56, role emotional 38.50 ± 12.08, and mental health 44.68 ± 5.75. The two most affected domains were “physical functioning” and “role emotional” among the study participants. Overall, men had better QOL scores; this was found to be statistically significant ( P = 0.002). QOL were better among the educated group of participants than illiterate group of participants. Conclusion: In diabetes management, QOL needs to be emphasized in health program for more effective approach.