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Diabetic retinopathy and health-related quality of life among Chinese with known type 2 diabetes mellitus

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Abstract

Purpose

We aim to describe the impact of diabetic retinopathy (DR) on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among community-dwelling Chinese adults who had been previously diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).

Methods

A community-based survey including 913 patients with T2DM was conducted in Suzhou, China. Retinopathy lesions were graded according to the Airlie House classification system of the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study. The HRQOL was measured by the Chinese version of the EuroQol Group’s five-level EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L). A Gamma distribution with log link was incorporated into linear regression models to assess the associations between DR and EQ-5D-5L health utility score.

Results

The mean EQ-5D-5L index scores were 0.971 ± 0.082 among individuals with unilateral DR and 0.970 ± 0.145 among those with bilateral DR, which were lower compared with those without DR (0.986 ± 0.045, P = 0.02). In multivariate analysis adjusting for confounders, people with bilateral DR reported lower the EQ-5D index scores compared with those without DR. The presence of DR was significantly associated with problems in usual activities (odds ratio [OR] = 0.16, P = 0.02, comparing participants with unilateral vs. no DR; OR = 0.11; P = 0.01, comparing participants with bilateral vs. no DR). No significant variations in EQ-5D-5L index scores as well as different domains of health problems between individuals with unilateral and bilateral DR were observed (P > 0.05).

Conclusion

Chinese T2DM patients with bilateral DR tend to report lower HRQOL scores compared with those without DR, especially in health problems associated with usual activities.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fredrick Dermawan Purba from Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Dr. Hui Jun Zhou from the National Health Group, Singapore for revising this paper.

Funding

This study was funded by the Suzhou Science and Technology Bureau (Grant No. SS201426), the Science and Technology Department of Jilin Province (Grant No. 20130206059SF), Jiangsu Distinguished Medical Experts Program (No. 2016) and Gusu Health Leading Talent Plan (Grant No. 025).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, Medical College of Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Chen-Wei Pan & Shan Wang

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Preventive and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Diseases, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Chen-Wei Pan & Shan Wang

  3. Department of Health Economics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, 130 Dong An Road, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Pei Wang

  4. Key Lab of Health Technology Assessment, National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (Fudan University), Shanghai, China

    Pei Wang

  5. Lixiang Eye Hospital of Soochow University, 200 East Gan Jiang Road, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Cai-Lian Xu & E. Song

  6. Department of Ophthalmology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Cai-Lian Xu & E. Song

Authors
  1. Chen-Wei Pan
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  2. Shan Wang
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  3. Pei Wang
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  4. Cai-Lian Xu
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  5. E. Song
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pei Wang or E. Song.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Pan, CW., Wang, S., Wang, P. et al. Diabetic retinopathy and health-related quality of life among Chinese with known type 2 diabetes mellitus. Qual Life Res 27, 2087–2093 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1876-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1876-6

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