Determinants of quality of life among COVID-19 patients in Southwestern region of Bangladesh

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused an unprecedented health crisis and dramatically changed human lives. This study aims to identify risk factors related to health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among COVID-19 patients who were discharged from the hospital. A total of 557 COVID-19 patients of Jhenaidah district of Bangladesh who had tested positive before February 1 of 2021 were selected for this cross-sectional study. The EuroQol 5-dimensional-5 level questionnaire was used to measure the HRQoL. Thai value set was used to assess the full health status. Chi-square test was used to find out the association of HRQoL with sociodemographic and clinical factors. Finally, logistic regression was used to find out the predictors of the dimensions of HRQoL. Using the Thai value set, it is observed that 57.27% of participants had reported that they had experienced moderate or severe health problems. About 40.57% of the respondent reported anxiety or depression, whereas 39.14% of the participants had experienced moderate or severe pain or discomfort. The result of the logistic regression showed that age, gender, occupation, place of care, heart problems, and diabetes significantly affect various dimensions of the HRQoL. The COVID-19 significantly depletes the health condition of the patients in both mental and physical aspects. Therefore, the policy-makers and government should need to come with comprehensive strategies to reduce the psychological and physical health woe of COVID-19 patients.