Self-perception of health status, mental health and quality of life among adults with diabetes residing in a metropolitan area.

Abstract Aim The study aimed to compare the self-perception of health, physiological distress and health-related quality of life (HRQL) in subjects with and without diabetes residing in a large metropolitan area (the city of Madrid), and to identify the variables associated with the poorest HRQL among diabetes patients. Methods In this case-control epidemiological study, we selected 358 patients with diabetes from the Madrid City Health Survey. For every patient, two controls without diabetes were randomly selected from the same database and matched for age, gender and health district. The resultant study population comprised 1074 subjects, who were analyzed according to their self-rated health status, with mental health assessed by the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and HRQL by the COOP/WONCA questionnaire. Independent variables included sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle variables, associated chronic diseases and consumption of medications. Multivariate analyses were conducted using ANCOVA tests. Results The prevalence of health perceived as fair or poor was 64.12% in those with diabetes vs 38.57% in those without diabetes ( P Conclusion Self-rated health and psychological well-being, and HRQL, are all considerably poorer among patients with diabetes vs those without diabetes. The poorest quality of life among those with diabetes associated with female gender, depression, lack of exercise and obesity.