Health-Related Quality of Life in Chinese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: An Analysis of the Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Program

Objective: Diabetes is associated with impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL) which predicts adverse clinical outcome. To examine clinical factors associated with HRQoL in a cross-sectional cohort of 14,826 Hong Kong Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes receiving outpatient care.

Methods: Adult patients with type 2 diabetes who underwent comprehensive assessment of risk factors and complications using the web-based Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Program also completed the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) questionnaire and visual analogue scale (VAS) for evaluation of HRQoL. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify clinical correlates with EQ-5D index and the association was expressed using β-coefficient whereby β>0 indicates positive correlation and β<0 indicates negative correlation.

Results: More patients reported problems with pain/discomfort (24.8%) and anxiety/depression (20.3%) than other dimensions of mobility (7.1%), self-care (2.2%) and usual activities (4.3%). Age (β=-0.001), female gender (β=- 0.049), obesity (β=-0.007), hypoglycemia at least once monthly (β=-0.04), presence of cardiovascular disease (β=- 0.034), nephropathy (β=-0.014) and sensory neuropathy (β=-0.063) were independently correlated with lower EQ-5D index, while hypertension (β=0.017) and use of insulin (β=0.017) were correlated with higher EQ-5D index (p<0.05).

Conclusion: In Hong Kong Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes, somatic and psychological complaints were common. Apart from demographic characteristics, risk factors, complications and treatment all influenced HRQoL.