Social exclusion and quality of life related to health in people from 25 to 60 years old living in the northeast zone, Medellín, 2009

Objective: to identify the perception of social exclusion andits demographic, economic, and sociopolitical participationdimensions as well as its association with the Health-RelatedQuality of Life (HRQOL) of people aged 25 to 60 living in thenortheastern area of Medellin - Colombia, 2009. Methodology:a cross-sectional study of association was conducted. Thesample size was calculated with a confidence level of 95%,an error of 4.5%, and a ratio of 0.28 derived from a study onsocial exclusion conducted in Medellín in 2008. The study wasconducted with a total of 404 subjects. The sample was obtainedthrough a probability, cluster, and multistage sampling thatwas proportional by sex and had no replacement. The data wasanalyzed using the spss v.15.0 and Stata 10 software. Results:22.8% of the population was perceived to be in a situation ofsocial exclusion. The assessment of the Health-Related Qualityof Life (hrqol) showed high scores in all the domains of the SF-36 questionnaire. Significant differences were observed inrole physical (p = 0.000), role emotional (p = 0.000), and MentalHealth (p = 0.023) scores. Non-excluded individuals showedhigher scores in these domains. Conclusions: the results suggestthat the perception of social exclusion affects HRQOL andindividual health conditions may affect the perception of socialexclusion. This may be due to the fact that health (disease) initself generates social exclusion or that the healthcare services inthe Colombian health system cause sick people to feel excluded