Quality Of Life Of Patients And Its Influencing Factors In Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Pulmonary tuberculosis is one of the diseases which threaten the human health and life seriously. Chemotherapy is the most important method in treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis and most patients have been cured. However, some patients have become retreatment cases because of nonstandard treatment and drug-resistance. The quality of life (QOL) of patients with retreatment pulmonary tuberculosis is influenced by prolonged treatment duration, andcomplexity of disease seriously.Objective: To investigate the quality of life and influencing factors of patients withretreatment pulmonary tuberculosis, and to provide scientific basis for the further effectiveclinical intervention.Methods: The descriptive research design was adopted in this research. 102 hospitalized patients with retreatment pulmonary tuberculosis were enrolled to the study. Their quality of life and influencing factors, such as demographic factors, illness related factors and psychological-social factors were investigated. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to assess the impact of multiple factors on the quality of life.Results: The total QOL was lower for the patients with retreatment pulmonary tuberculosis. The score of physical domain of QOL was 45.96±10.18; psychological domain of QOL was 52.46±16.42; social domain of QOL was 49.01±9.25; environmental domain of QOL was 51.58±6.91. Compared with Yang's study, the quality of life in patients with retreatment pulmonary tuberculosis was much lower than the patients with pulmonary tuberculosis on their physical, psychological and social domain.The univariate analysis of affecting factors showed that married group got higher score in social area than that of single group; the style of medicare affects environmental area, patients with medicare got higher score than those without medicare; score was much lower in physical area with the longer treatment duration; patients with smear positive got lower score in physical area and mental areas; emptysis affected patients' score in physical area, mental area and social area; patients with tuberculosis toxic symptoms got lower score in physical area and mental area than those without symptoms; the level of mental health could affect mental area; the level of social support affected physical area, mental area and social area. Stepwise multiple regression indicated that the factors affecting physical area of QOL were smear positive, emptysis, treatment duration and tuberculosis toxic symptoms; the factors affecting psychological area of QOL included social support, smear positive and mental health; the factors influencing social area of QOL included social support, marital status, mental health and emptysis; the factor affecting environmental area of QOL was medicare style.Conclusions: The patients with retreatment pulmonary tuberculosis had lower quality of life. It is demonstrated that illness factors, psychological-social factors were the main factors affecting QOL of the patients. In order to improve QOL of these patients, nurses should make efforts to help the patients not only in treatment but also in mental health and social support.