Quality of Life in Patients with Thalassemia Major

Mohit Gupta, Ritika Jindal

Abstract: We conducted a case control study to compare the quality of life (QOL) in 50 children with thalassemia and 50 demographically matched healthy controls at a referral hospital in Northern India. Quality of life among children with thalassemia was significantly worse in emotional (P= 0.025) and school (P=0.011) functioning in self report and also in psychosocial (P=0.001), emotional (P=0.00), physical (P=0.03), social (P=0.00) functioning in parent proxy report. Factors [except age (P=0.000)] such as gender (P=0.951, socioeconomic status (P=0.593) and parent living status (P=0.478) did not significantly influence QOL scores.

Keywords: thalassemia, quality of life, social, physical, demography