[Quality of life in patients with essential arterial hypertension. Part I: The effect o socio-demographic factors ].

Currently, one of the methods of comprehensive evaluation of patient health status is quality of life assessment. In the management of hypertension, evaluation of quality of life helps in individualization of therapy and improves its efficiency. The aim of the study was to compare the general quality of life between patients with essential hypertension and normal blood pressure values, and to analyse the effect of socio-demographic factors on the quality of life. An open questionnaire was distributed among 1539 patients (775 men and 764 women), aged from 18 to 88 years (x = 51.7 +/- 14.6 years) with essential hypertension detected at least 3 months earlier, referring to treatment for the first time or already treated by general practitioners and the Outpatient Department on Hypertension of the I Cardiac Department. Hypotensive treatment was given to 82.6% of the subjects, whereas 17.4% were untreated. A group of 995 subjects (459 men and 536 women) aged from 18 to 82 years (x = 48.6 +/- 11.2 years) with normal blood pressure values served as controls. All subjects provided data on education employment, body mass index, duration of arterial hypertension, family history, target organ damage, co-morbidity, blood pressure value, heart rate and pharmacological treatment. All subjects filled out a standardised questionnaire--Psychological General Well-Being (PGWB), which evaluated the general quality of life and its sin dimensions: Anxiety, Depressive mood, Subjective Well-being, Self-control, General health and Vitality. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and multiple regression. The general quality of life in patients with essential hypertension was significantly lower than that in age-matched normotensives. The quality of life in women was lower than that in men irrespective of arterial hypertension presence. The quality of life was decreasing with age both in hypertensive and normotensives; however in hypertensive men there was a trend towards improved quality of life above 65 years of age in contrast to age-matched women in whom the quality of life deteriorated. The quality of life in untreated hypertensives was lower than that in age-matched healthy subjects, but until 40 years of age was higher than in treated age-matched hypertensives. The quality of life was related to the level of education, employment and familial history of hypertension. A lower quality of life was observed among hypertensives with coronary heart disease and diabetes. Multiple regression analysis revealed that gender, education, age and familial hypertension were the socio-demographic factors, which independently affected the quality of life among hypertensives. These factors accounted for 32.7% of the observed variance of quality of life. In normotensives subjects the independent factors were gender, age, education and employment--accounting for 65.8% of variance of quality of life.