Abstract
Purpose::
to assess health-related quality of life with Italian SF-36 in patients with uveitis on chronic systemic immunosuppressants.
Methods::
consecutive patients with chronic non infectious uveitis on systemic immunosuppressive treatment seen at the Ocular Immunology Service, University Hospital San Raffaele, Milan, were enrolled. Health status was evaluated with the Italian version of SF-36 questionnaire in 8 dimensions: physical functioning and disability, body pain, general health, vitality, social functioning, emotional disability, mental health . Statistical analysis of variance was used to test for differences in SF-36 scores between subgroups of interest (age, sex, educational level, location and laterality of uveitis, systemic associated diseases, visual acuity, systemic treatment, duration of disease).
Results::
100 caucasian patients (35 female, 65 male) with a median age of 46,31 years (range 10-76) were analyzed. The uveitis was bilateral in 88% of patients. Location of uveitis was: anterior (9%), intermediate (12%), posterior (48%) and panuveitis (31%). The most frequent diagnosis encountered were:idiopathic (32%), sarcoidosis (15%) and Behcet disease (15%). The SF-36 physical and mental component summary scores were lower among patients with uveitis than in general Italian population (p<0.01); the most important statistically significant differences in subgroups were found with respect to visual acuity, duration of disease and prolonged systemic corticosteroid treatment.
Conclusions::
Italian patients with uveitis on chronic systemic immunosuppressants reported markedly poorer general health status than normal matched polulation subjects. The quality of life of these patients seems to be significantly related to visual acuity and type and duration of systemic medications.
Keywords: quality of life • uveitis-clinical/animal model • autoimmune disease