Health related quality of life in patients with liver cirrhosis: its determination and correlation with relevant factors

OBJECTIVE: To determine the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among patients with Cirrhosis of the liver using a short form of liver disease quality of life (SF-LDQOL) instrument, also to correlate HRQOL scores with relevant factors. METHODOLOGY: This prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out in the medical department of Civil Hospital Karachi from May 2021 to April 2022. One hundred ninety-seven confirmed cases of Cirrhosis from either gender over 18 years of age without malignancy, HIV infection, or Psychiatric/ Neurological diseases were enrolled using convenient sampling. The SF-LDQOL instrument assessed HRQOL, summarizing overall disease-targeted HRQOL (0 to 100), where a higher score shows good HRQOL or otherwise. RESULTS: Using SPSS version 23, the SF-LDQOL score was 44±7.3. The severity of liver cirrhosis by CTP-A correlated weakly (-0.1294), while CTP B and CTP C strongly correlated with SF-LDQOL scores (-0.9894 and -0.9912), respectively. The p-value for CTP A (0.705) is insignificant; however, for CTP B and C (p < 0.00001 & p < 0.00001) is significant. Demographically, the age and income status correlated strongly to SF-LDQOL scores, displaying considerable p-values (p