The assessment of patients' health-related quality of life during tuberculosis treatment in Wuhan, China

OBJECTIVES: To validate the SF-36 questionnaire in a Chinese population and to assess the patients' health-related quality of life (HQoL) during tuberculosis (TB) treatment.

DESIGN: The SF-36 (Chinese version) scores of 102 TB cases before treatment, after the initial phase and at the end of treatment were compared with those of 103 control subjects.

RESULTS: The SF-36 scores were valid (internal consistency >0.4) and reliable (Cronchbach's α >0.7). Before treatment, all except the role-emotional, social function and mental health scales of the TB patients were lower than those of the controls (P < 0.01); the patients' scores increased significantly during treatment (P < 0.01). In a stepwise regression model, age (P < 0.01, OR 0.95), white blood cell count (P < 0.01, OR 0.92) and number of symptoms (P < 0.05, OR 0.99) were associated with the total SF-36 score. At completion of treatment, sex (P < 0.01, OR 0.25) and haemoglobin (P < 0.05, OR 0.88) remained at the end of the model.

CONCLUSION: The SF-36 scores of TB patients are low before treatment, indicating a decline in HQoL, with physical scales most affected. However, scores increase over the course of treatment. The Chinese version of SF-36 is a reliable tool for monitoring HQoL throughout TB treatment.