Assessment of quality of life in bronchial asthma patients

Introduction: Asthma is a common chronic disease that affects persons of all ages. People with asthma report impact on the physical, psychological and social domains of quality of life. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures have been developed to complement traditional health measures such as prevalence, mortality and hospitalization as indicators of the impact of disease. Objective and Study Design: The objective of this study was to assess HRQoL in Bronchial asthma patients and to relate the severity of asthma with their quality of life. About 85 asthma patients were evaluated for HRQoL and their pulmonary function tests values were correlated with HRQoL scores. Results and Conclusion: It was found that asthma patients had poor quality of life. There was greater impairment in quality of life in females, obese and middle age patients indicating that sex, body mass index and age are determinants of HRQoL in asthma patients.