Abstract
Objective: We investigated the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with chronic diseases in community pharmacies in Japan and examined its relationship to patient attributes, an area that has not been previously studied.
Method: We surveyed 1,500 participants with chronic diseases and 1,500 from the general population without chronic diseases (Free-GP) using the EuroQol (5-dimension, 5-level) questionnaire. Patient attributes included the number of drugs used, duration of medication, number of chronic conditions, perceived disease severity, and perceived treatment importance. Logistic regression analyses assessed how these attributes influenced the likelihood of reporting “full health” (no problems on all HRQoL questions) among patients with chronic disease. An exploratory decision tree analysis was performed to identify patient attributes that might decrease HRQoL.
Result: The HRQoL score of patients (0.856) was lower than that of Free-GP (0.942). The HRQoL of patients tended to increase with aging. Among patients, the mean HRQoL score was 0.781 for polypharmacy, which decreased with the addition of disease severity perception (even lower for those in their 20s-40). Even in the absence of polypharmacy, the average HRQoL score decreased when patients were in their 20s with multimorbidity. The HRQoL scores of non-polypharmacy patients in their 30s or older were higher than the mean scores of patients with chronic disease.
Conclusion: To provide extensive care for patients with reduced HRQoL in community pharmacies, it is necessary to focus on polypharmacy. Reduced HRQoL should be considered in younger patients with multimorbidity, even in the absence of polypharmacy.
