This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Diabetic foot ulcers diminish quality of life more than other complications

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

SAN DIEGO — In a study comparing health-related quality of life across diabetes complications, diabetic foot ulcer complications posed the greatest burden on quality of life in adults with type 2 diabetes.

Apiradee Sriwijitkamol, MD, of the faculty of medicine, department of medicine, division of endocrinology and metabolism at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Thailand, and colleagues evaluated 254 adults (mean age, 63 years) with diabetes (mean HbA1c, 7.7%; mean duration of diabetes, 13.1 years; mean BMI, 24.9 kg/m²) to determine the health-related quality of life in patients with diabetic foot problems.

Participants were divided into groups including: participants with diabetes and diabetic foot problems including foot ulcer (n = 98) or amputation (n = 43); participants with diabetes and other diabetic complications such as end-stage renal disease (n = 28), coronary artery disease (n = 27) or diabetic retinopathy (n = 27); and participants with diabetes without complications (n = 31).

All participants completed the Thai-version EuroQol five-dimensions questionnaire with a five-level scale (no problems; slight problems; moderate problems; severe problems; or extreme problems) to rate their level of impairment across mobility, self-care, usual activity, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. Time-trade-off methods were used to calculate utility values, which were the participants own assessment of their health status.

Twenty-one percent of participants with diabetic foot complications lost their jobs after their complications.

Participants with complications had lower utility values compared with those without complications. Moderate to severe problems were reported more frequently on all dimensions except anxiety/depression by the diabetic foot ulcer group compared with the other groups.

Compared with participants with other diabetic complications and no complications, participants with diabetic foot complications had the lowest mean utility value (mean utility value for diabetic foot complications, 0.703 vs. 0.889 for CAD, 0.898 for end-stage renal disease, 0.924 for diabetic retinopathy and 0.961 for no complications; P < .01). There was no difference in utility values for participants with diabetic foot ulcers or amputation.

“From this study we show that quality of life in patients with diabetic foot problems is worse than those with other diabetes complications and the quality of life is significantly lower across all dimensions,” Sriwijitkamol said during her presentation. “Lower quality of life in patients with diabetic foot problems also created a health burden, they cannot walk so they have to depend on others and some even lost their jobs.” – by Amber Cox

Reference:

Sothornwit J, et al. 105-OR. Presented at: American Diabetes Association 77th Scientific Sessions; June 9-13, 2017; San Diego.

Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.