Effectiveness of lifestyle modification on quality of life among uncontrolled diabetics and hypertensives in India – Community based intervention study

BACKGROUND: Diabetes and hypertension contribute to more than half of morbidity, mortality and years lived with disability in developing countries like India. It impacts the quality of life (QoL) of patients and their family. Management of these diseases is in infancy and emphasis is laid on pharmacological interventions. Though nonpharmacological measures are crucial for management, their implementation is questionable. Hence, this study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of lifestyle modifications on QoL among uncontrolled hypertensives and diabetics in rural India. METHODS: An interventional study was done in 3 villages with 100 participants each, where village one received lifestyle modification as intervention and village two physical activity and village three control receiving standard care. The baseline data included socio-demographic characteristics such as awareness of hypertension, diabetes, lifestyle pattern and physical activity, and WHO QoL. The participants were trained, followed up, and assessed after 12 months following intervention. QoL scores between groups and pre- and post-intervention in the group were compared using Mann–Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank test, respectively. RESULTS: In this study, there was a significant improvement in overall QoL and in all the four domains, namely physical, psychological, social relationship, and environmental domains in both the intervention villages. QoL was significantly better in both the intervention groups following intervention than compared to the control group. CONCLUSIONS: QoL improves with intervention on uncontrolled diabetics and hypertensives. It is time to emphasize on the collaboration among physicians and on the holistic integrative health services delivery for non-communicable diseases.