Quality of life in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and/or Ménière's disease

Patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and/or Ménière's disease relate damages in quality of life. AIM: To compare the impact of dizziness on quality of life, in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and/or Ménière's disease, in crisis and out of crisis, and to evaluate the influence of gender, age and impaired semicircular canal. STUDY DESIGN: clinical with transversal cohort. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The prospective study was realized in 2003/04 at Federal University of São Paulo. The Dizziness Handicap Inventory was applied in seventy patients with positional vertigo, seventy with Ménière's disease and fifteen with both. Two-proportion equality test and the Analysis of variance were employed in this study. RESULTS: When comparing the groups, Dizziness Handicap Inventory results evidenced higher averages in crisis and out of crisis for Ménière's disease group than for positional vertigo group. The same occurred only during the crisis period in the group when comparing with both disorders (p < 0,05). No significant statistical differences were observed, when comparing the results considering age, gender and, in the group with positional vertigo, affection of posterior semicircular canal as variables. CONCLUSIONS: Ménière's disease patients presented worse quality of life when compared to BPPV patients, in and out of crisis, and during the crisis when regarding the patients with association of both disorders. The damage on quality of life was independent of gender, age and in the BPPV cases it was independent of posterior canal affection.