Quality of life assessment in Thai patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis using the SF-36 questionnaire (Thai version)

Abstract

The health related quality of life (QOL) of patients with allergic rhinitis and/or conjunctivitis (ARc) as measured by the SF-36 questionnaire, has been shown to be impaired in a similar way to that of asthmatic patients in France and several other countries. We used the SF-36 questionnaire (Thai version) to evaluate the QOL of Thai ARc patients compared to healthy subjects. The SF-36 questionnaire (Thai version) consists of 36 items covering 8 dimensions and one health transition report question. Higher scores indicated better QOL. The internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire was analysed using Cronbach's alpha-coefficient. A total of 705 healthy persons and 900 ARc patients were included in this study. The mean difference of the scores between healthy and ARc groups in each dimension showed higher scores in the healthy group. This difference was statistically significant (p<0.05 and p<0.001) for all dimensions, except for the Social Functioning dimension. The internal reliability of the SF-36 questionnaire was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha-coefficient which was above 0.7 for seven of the dimensions; the exception was the Social Functioning dimension. Men were shown to have higher scores than women in several dimensions. In conclusion, this study has confirmed that the SF-36 questionnaire is sensitive enough to discriminate ARc patients from healthy persons with high reliability. QOL of ARc patients was significantly more impaired than healthy persons and hypertensive patients in several dimensions. These findings were similar to reports from other countries using the same instruments. Therefore the SF-36 questionnaire (Thai version) can be a useful tool in evaluating the impact of ARc on a patient's QOL and the improvement in QOL after therapeutic intervention in Thai patients.