Research
Health related quality of life in patients with anogenital warts
-
* Corresponding author: Sotirios A Koupidis sotirioskoupidis@yahoo.gr
1 Sexually Transmitted Infections Unit, 1st Department of Dermatology and Venereology, University of Athens, "Andreas Sygros" Hospital, Athens, Greece
2 Department of Psychiatry, Medical School, University of Ioannina, Greece
Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2011, 9:67 doi:10.1186/1477-7525-9-67
Published: 16 August 2011Abstract
Introduction
The health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) instruments are an important tool for the evaluation of medical outcomes. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) influence the patients' life. We aimed to evaluate the HRQoL in patients with anogenital warts at the time of and 1 month after the diagnosis.
Materials and methods
We used the short-form (SF)-36 questionnaire to compare the HRQoL of 91 patients with anogenital warts to 53 control subjects with the same socioeconomic characteristics.
Results
There was no statistical difference in the overall HRQoL measurement between the anogenital wart patients and controls. However, there was an improvement in the scales of vitality (65.22 ± 15.70 vs. 69.04 ± 14.11, respectively; p < 0.05) and mental health (65.00 ± 20.09 vs. 69.43 ± 18.08, respectively; p < 0.05) in anogenital warts patients between the time of diagnosis and 1 month later. Furthermore, there was a significant deterioration in the scale of social functioning (73.47 ± 22.18 vs. 72.89 ± 19.28, respectively; p < 0.05). The small sample size is a limitation of our study.
Conclusions
HRQoL does not appear to be influenced in anogenital wart patients, as measured by the generic instrument SF-36. It is therefore important to develop specific instruments for the measurement of HRQoL in this group of patients.