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Measurement of Quality of Life in patients of Leprosy attending Outdoor Patient Department at Tertiary Care Center of Ahmedabad: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by the Mycobacterium leprae, which primarily affects the peripheral nervous system and secondarily the skin and having great impact on patients’ quality of life. A cross sectional study was carried out to assess and evaluate the Quality of Life (QOL) of Leprosy patients at tertiary care center of Ahmedabad over a period of 8 months using Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) designed by Finlay and Khan. In our study we included 87 Leprosy patients who were >16 years and also released from treatment (RFT) patients with Male: Female ratio was 3:1, majority of patients (42.52%) were in the middle age group (31-45 yr). Mean duration of disease was 3.2 year. The mean DLQI score was 10.58±2.57%. According to DLQI score categorization 47 patients (54.02%) were having very large effect on their quality of life. There was no significant difference observed between gender, age & education in all subdomain of quality of life. Statistically significant difference (p<0.001) was noted with duration of disease and presence of deformity. Conclusion of our study was that deformities and social stigma associated with leprosy has great impact on quality of life of leprosy affected persons even after the disease gets bacteriologically cured.

More information

Type
Journal Article
Author
Solanki SD
Barot JP
Patel JH
Patel NM
Patel D
Nagrani N
Arora A