The relative health related quality of life of veterans with Parkinson's disease.
OBJECTIVES: To use databases of the US Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to describe the impact of Parkinson's disease on health related quality of life (HRQoL) of veterans; to compare the HRQoL of veterans with Parkinson's disease with that of veterans reporting eight other neurological or chronic conditions; and to estimate the unique effect of Parkinson's disease on HRQoL. METHODS: Respondents to the VHA 1999 large national health survey of veteran enrollees with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in VHA treatment files for the fiscal years 1997-1999 were identified by merging databases. The survey incorporated the Veterans SF-36, a well validated generic measure of HRQoL and functional status. This was used to compare patient groups. Mean physical ( PCS) and mental ( MCS) component summary scores were calculated for Parkinson's disease and eight other diseases by multivariable regressions that adjusted for age, sex, race, education, and 15 mental and physical co-morbid conditions that were self reported in the survey. RESULTS: Of 887 775 survey respondents, 14 530 (1.64%) had a Parkinson's disease diagnosis. Controlling for sociodemographic factors and co-morbidities, veterans with Parkinson's disease had PCS and MCS below veterans with angina/coronary heart disease, arthritis, chronic low back pain, congestive heart failure, diabetes, and stroke. Veterans with spinal cord injury reported slightly lower PCS than veterans with Parkinson's disease (32.38 v 32.72; 0.03 of 1 SD). Veterans with depression reported markedly lower MCS than veterans with Parkinson's disease (35.94 v 41.48; 0.55 of 1 SD). The unique effect of having Parkinson's disease on HRQoL was to lower PCS and MCS by 4.10 and 3.42 points (0.41 and 0.34 of 1 SD), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis quantifies the negative impact of Parkinson's disease on HRQoL, after controlling for sociodemographic factors and co-morbidities. Compared with eight other chronic conditions, Parkinson's disease imposes a relatively heavy burden on US veterans in the VHA health care system.[1]References
- The relative health related quality of life of veterans with Parkinson's disease. Gage, H., Hendricks, A., Zhang, S., Kazis, L. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. (2003) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg