Ilkay Ozdemir, Cicek Hocaoglu, Mustafa Kocak and Onder H Ersoz
Objective: This study was intended to examine the associations between psychiatric symptoms and quality of life in patients with diabetes and other co-morbid chronic physical diseases and sociodemographic variables.
Method: One hundred randomly selected consecutive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) admitted to the Department of Endocrinology out-patient clinic at the Karadeniz Technical University were enrolled. One hundred age-, gender- and marital status-matched volunteers served as the control group. The sociodemographic data form, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD) and Short Form-36 (SF–36) were completed for all participants.
Results: Patient group education and income levels were lower than those of the controls. When SF-36 scores were compared in terms of presence or absence of co-morbid disease in addition to diabetes, mean scores of subjects with chronic disease were lower in the patient and control groups. When HAD-A and HAD-D mean scores were compared in terms of the presence or absence of other co-morbid chronic disease, both sub-scale scores were higher in those members of the patient group with chronic diseases.
Conclusions: This study establishes that diabetes causes an extreme deterioration in patients’ quality of life and gives rise to many accompanying clinical signs. Our study thus emphasizes the need for consultation and liaison between departments.