Jakość życia zależna od stanu zdrowia u chorych na astmę oskrzelową

A patient is not, or at least should not be, a passive subject, but the active participant of the process of asthma treatment. This naturally imposes covering patients with bronchial asthma with a holistic model of care. Assessment of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is one component of this model. HRQoL of asthma patients can be determined with an array of generic instruments, e.g., Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form 36 (SF-36), EuroQoL questionnaire (EQ-5D) or World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL), as well as with the specific tools, among which Saint George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRO) and Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) belong to the most widely used. HRQoL is significantly associated with the degree of asthma control. However, literature data suggest that a determination of HRQoL alone, with either specific or generic instrument, can be insufficient, as the level of health-related quality of life turned out to be modulated by three groups of factors: (1) demographic characteristics of patients, (2) clinical parameters, and (3) personality traits of respondents. Due to particularly strong effect of psychological characteristics on the quality of life of patients with bronchial asthma, also the level of depressiveness should be examined along with the HRQoL determination. Furthermore, complex assessment of the quality of life and its determinants should be conducted longitudinally, either in individual patients or in epidemiological studies.