EVALUATION OF THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF LEPROSY PATIENTS: A QUNTITATIVE APROACH

Abstract

Introduction: Leprosy, due to its high prevalence and disabling potential is very important in the area of public health, especially when considering the economically active group of society. Even though leprosy is a well studied disease, there aren’t many studies evaluating how the disease affects the patient’s quality of life. Objective: Evaluate the quality of life of leprosy patients with the appropriate instruments. Methods:  The study was conducted in the Ambulatório de Especialidades Antônio João Miranda do Hospital Dom Rodrigo de Menezes in Salvador – BA, where twenty – five patients agreed to answer two questionnaires validated for the evaluation of quality of life. The two questionnaires were the following: a Socio-Demographic-Occupational questionnaire and the SF-36 questionnaire. For the analysis of the categorical variables and of the domains of the SF-36 questionnaire, it was used the Mann-Whitney test, while it was used the Spearman correlation test to analyze the continuous demographic variables. Results: Out of pool of patients, there was a higher prevalence of male patients (56%), of Catholics (64%), employed (76%) and that do not perform any physical activity (88%). The majority of the subjects live with someone (84%) and possess a job (88%) with a monthly income varying from 300 to 600 DOLARS (84%).  It was shown that 44% are married and that women have better quality of life. Analysis indicated that family monthly income influences on "Physical Appearance,".  The presence of children at home positively influences the "Mental Health" of patients. Conclusion: Analyzing such data is very important to conduct appropriate public policies in order to improve the quality of life of patients with leprosy.