The goal was to examine the quality of life of people living with arterial hypertension, and the various constituents of their condition that affect it.
The factors that affected the quality of life included gender, source of income, living situation, care provider, and level of education. Among these factors, housing conditions seemed to have the most effect on the quality of life, with ρ = 0.782, 0.383, 0.659, and 0.981 for physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment respectively. Education level, on the other hand, provided the least correlation with the quality of life of the patients, with the ρ values for all domains at 0.001. Other factors that affected the quality of life of the study participants included the number of hypotensive drugs taken regularly and owning and BP measuring device.
Out of these two, the number of drugs taken had a greater impact on life quality, especially on social relationships (ρ = 0.697). Other factors that affected the quality of life included other chronic illnesses, factors conducive to hypertension, situations causing an increase in blood pressure, and symptoms of hypertension. Other chronic illnesses had a significant impact on the environmental quality of life (ρ = 0.921), while symptoms of hypertension mostly affected the psychological domain (ρ = 0.557).
Hypertension is a chronic disease that affects people of a variety of ages, significantly lowering their quality of life. The medical professionals aim to revive the quality of life to the pre-diseased level, for which purpose multiple studies, including this one, have been conducted. The areas of life that were examined were physical, psychological, social, and environmental. From the findings, the factors that most affected quality of life were sources of income, age and sex, education level, behavioral patterns, and physical symptoms the participants experienced.
Reference
Snarska, K., Chorąży, M., Szczepański, M., Wojewódzka-Żelezniakowicz, M. & Ładny, J. R. (2020). Quality of Life of Patients with Arterial Hypertension. Medicina (Kaunas), 56(9), 459.