The association of psychological stress and health related quality of life among patients with stroke and hypertension in Gaza Strip

Baune, B.T., and Aljeesh, Y. (2006) The association of psychological stress and health related quality of life among patients with stroke and hypertension in Gaza Strip. Annals of General Psychiatry, 5 (1). pp. 1-8.

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Abstract

Background: The study was performed to investigate the association of psychological stress and quality of life (QOL) among patients with the cardiovascular disease (CVD) of hypertension plus stroke or hypertension only.

Methods: The WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was applied to 112 hypertensive patients with hypertension plus stroke and 224 hypertensive patients without stroke. Psychological stress was assessed with SCL-90. Means scale scores were compared using student-t-test and predictors of QOL were calculated with covariance analysis.

Results: Patients with stroke had a significant lower QOL than patients without stroke and a significantly higher level of stress (p < 0.01). In analyses of covariance psychological stress was significantly correlated to all domains of QOL among non-stroke patients. The same psychological and sociodemographic factors showed little impact on the stroke patients in these multivariable analyses. In these models psychological stress had a significant impact on the global domain of QOL among stroke patients. Income and gender were the only sociodemographic factors being significantly associated with the physical (education) and social (gender) domains of QOL in stroke patients.

Conclusion: Psychological stress was strongly correlated with all domains of QOL in patients without stroke and was only partly associated with QOL among patients with stroke. Future studies should investigate if psychological stress is a factor suitable for educational and psychological interventions aiming at stress reduction in CVD patients which might substantially contribute to better health related quality of life in these patients.

Item ID: 3728
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1744-859X
Keywords: hypertension; psychological stress; quality of life
Additional Information:

© 2006 Baune and Aljeesh; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Date Deposited: 24 Nov 2009 03:29
FoR Codes: 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1103 Clinical Sciences > 110319 Psychiatry (incl Psychotherapy) @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920410 Mental Health @ 100%
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