Quality of life studies among type 2 diabetes mellitus in Klang Valley / Nurhydiana Abd. Rahim

Quality of Life (QoL) issues of chronic diseases are now receiving increasing attention from researchers. This study aims to determine the QoL of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients in Klang Valley and to compare the QoL according to their socio­ demographic information, which will give some insight to health practitioners on QoL-related information in order to improve the QoL of the patients. The data was collected by self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaire consists of two sections which are socio-demographic information and ADDQoL questionnaire. A total of 101 respondents among public completed the survey. The statistical analyses used were descriptive statistics and non-parametric Mann-Whitney and Kruskal­ Wallis tests. Generally, the QoL scores of the patients were low as the mean scores ranged from -4. 73 to -2.32. The highest score recorded is the way society react life domain which was -2.32 while the lowest score is freedom to eat life domain. It was also found that male patients, age of more than 40 years, not being a Hindu, better educated, employed, higher income, longer duration of disease and did not having any complications reported higher QoL compared to patients who were female, younger, being a Hindu, less educated, unemployed, moderate income, short duration of disease and having complications. This study leads to better understanding of QoL of the Type 2 OM patients. This is important in designing interventions by health practitioners towards Type 2 DM patients to improve the clinical outcome and most importantly the QoL of the patients.