Health-related quality of life in subjects with respiratory diseases: Preliminary results from the GEIRD study

Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is an important outcome measure in patients with respiratory diseases. This study aims at investigating HRQL in different respiratory disorders. Controls and cases of COPD, current asthma, past asthma, non-allergic rhinitis, allergic rhinitis and “Other Respiratory Conditions” (ORC) (n= 321, 29, 224, 125, 79, 130, and 148 respectively) were recruited in the frame of the nested multi-case control Genes Environment Interactions in Respiratory Diseases (GEIRD) study. HRQL was measured using SF-36 questionnaire. Medians of physical and mental component scores (PCS and MCS respectively) were estimated by quantile regression models adjusting for potential confounders. PCS and MCS median scores of controls were respectively 54.8 (95%CI 54.2-55.3) and 52.0 (95%CI 50.9-53.2) and were significantly different from all phenotypes except rhinitis and past asthma cases; in particular, PCS median score ranged from 49.4 (95%CI 47.6-51.2) for COPD cases to 53.0 (95%CI 52.2-53.9) for current asthma cases and MCS score from 47.9 (95%CI 44.3-51.5) for COPD cases to 49.9 (95%CI 48.6-51.2) for current asthma cases (Tab1). To our knowledge, this is the first study to perform a direct and simultaneous comparison of quality of life in several respiratory disorders. Subjects who suffer from COPD, current asthma and ORC had poorer HRQL than controls.