Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life among Tuberculosis Patients in a Public Primary Care Facility in Indonesia

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Evaluation of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among tuberculosis (TB) patients could improve understanding about the burden associated with the diseases. There is a paucity of research regarding evaluation of HRQoL among TB population in Indonesia. This study aimed to investigate HRQoL among TB patients in Ciamis, Indonesia. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted at one primary health-care facility in Ciamis, Indonesia. HRQoL was measured using the World Health Organization (WHO) QoL-BREF instrument which covers assessment on physical, psychological, social relationship, and environmental health domains. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate the association between domain scores with demographic factors of the participants such as age, sex, education years, and types of treatment. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS software version 21. RESULTS: Eighty-one participants were recruited in the present study. The total mean score for all domains was 45.35 (±23.3). The mean scores for physical, physiological, social relationship, and environmental health domains were 20.5 (±9.9), 76.4 (±11.9), 36.9 (±9.2), and 46.9 (±10.4), respectively. Education years were significantly associated with improved HRQoL in environmental health domain (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: TB had remarkable negative impacts on patients HRQoL, with physical domain was the most affected. This finding calls upon strategies addressing HRQoL problems in the management of TB patients.