Heart disease strongly impairs quality of life
Heart disease can markedly impair a patient’s quality of life with the impact varying by age, gender and racial group, researchers report in the journal Circulation.
The findings indicate that heart disease has the greatest negative effect on the quality of life of people between 18 and 49 years of age, women, and blacks and Hispanics. “Younger people may feel more pressure—especially younger men—in the workplace and may be more threatened by limitations imposed by their disease,” lead author Dr. Jipan Xie said in a statement.
Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys for 2000 and 2002, Xie, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and associates examined how quality of life differed between people with and those without heart disease in the United States. Of the 37,386 individuals surveyed, 2,091 had heart disease.
Standard questionnaires, called the 12-item Short Form Health Survey and the EuroQol Group tests, were used to gauge quality of life.
Overall, heart disease patients had physical and mental health scores that were, on average, 9.2 and 2.4 percent lower, respectively, than those of subjects without heart disease, the report indicates.
In addition, heart disease was associated with 4.6-percent lower score for health utility, which considers mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain or discomfort, and anxiety or depression, as well as 9-percent lower self-ratings of health.
With the exception of physical scores, a bigger heart disease-related gap in quality of life was noted among blacks compared with whites. For mental health scores, the heart disease-related difference in quality of life was greater among Hispanics than for non-Hispanics.
As noted, heart disease affected quality of life to a greater extent in younger patients than in older subjects, probably because “ heart disease has a much bigger impact on patients who are at their most productive age than those who are retired.”
Heart disease affected women much more than men in terms of reductions in the physical and health utility components of quality of life, but just the opposite was seen for self-rated health status.
“The implications of these findings underscore the need for interventions aimed at improved health-related quality of life for people with... heart disease—a population that has been growing rapidly,” Xie emphasized.
SOURCE: Circulation, July 29, 2008.
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