Study on Health Related Quality of Life among Patients with Metabolic Syndrome and Its Diagnostic Indicators

[[abstract]]Background and purpose: The metabolic syndrome, a constellation of abnormalities, has been drawing people?s attention recently. According to Dr. Chen?s survey in Year 2002, the prevalence rates of the metabolic syndrome among males and females were 16.9% and 13.8%, respectively (Chen et al., 2003). In addition, its prevalence is sharply increasing along the aged (Ford & Li, 2008). However, the magnitude of public health burden of the metabolic syndrome is still not understood. This study intended to compare the health-related quality of life among metabolic syndrome group, high risk group, and risk free patients. Additionally, a regression analysis was carried out to exam the relationship between regular clinical tools and diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome. Methods: By using systematic sampling method, we enrolled 1205 respondents with over the age of 20 from 5 different out-patients clinics in a regional hospital. Those respondents were categorized into metabolic syndrome group, high risk group, and risk free patients by reviewing their medical records. All subjects were face-to-face interviewed with a structured questionnaire composed of the Taiwan version of the short-form 36-item health survey (SF-36) and parts of National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), Year 2005. The SPSS12.0 software was employed for statistical inference. Results: After adjusting confounding factors, we found that metabolism syndrome group has significantly both better physical and mental health-related quality of life than that of high risk group as well as risk free group (p<0.05). We found that the average scores of physical health-related quality of life among the metabolic syndrome group is significantly lower than that of the other two control groups (p<0.05). On the Contrary, the average scores of mental health-related quality of life among the metabolic syndrome group is significantly higher than that of the other two control groups (p<0.05). Among 5 clinical tools to diagnose the metabolic syndrome, the circumference of waist (OR = 22.15, 95% CI 10.84-45.28, B = 3.10) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) values (OR = 25.43, 95% CI 9.38-68.95, B = 3.24) possess the most significant relationships with the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome (p