Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact of type-2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) on the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of patients and to analyse the impact of social-demographic and clinical variables and of resource use. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study with retrospective and prospective information gathering (HRQL questionnaire). Setting. 29 primary care centres from the whole of Spain. PARTICIPANTS: 1041 patients diagnosed with DM2 after the age of 30, chosen at random from patients' records at participating centres. Main measurements. HRQL evaluated through the general questionnaire EQ-5D, which enabled HRQL of patients to be compared with that of the general Spanish population, obtained from a sample of 8963 people. RESULTS: Patients with DM2 had worse HRQL (mean EVA index of 0.71) than people in the general population of the same age and gender (mean EVA index of 0.81). Women, older patients and obese patients had worse HRQL. In clinical terms, patients with some DM2-related complication, deficient glycaemic control and in receipt of insulin treatment had worse HRQL than patients without complications, acceptably controlled patients or those receiving non-pharmacological or oral anti-diabetes treatment. CONCLUSIONS: DM2 is associated with worse HRQL for patients, and more so for patients with complications, poor control of glucaemia or under insulin treatment.