The impact of diabetes mellitus and other chronic medical conditions on health-related Quality of Life: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Table 2 Influence of diabetes mellitus and other chronic medical conditions on SF-36 scales.

	Unadjusted differences in mean scores
	PF	RP	BP	GH	VT	SF	RE	MH	SF-6D
No chronic medical condition^† (n = 3155)	82.0 (22.61)	81.9 (32.16)	80.4 (21.20)	70.0 (16.62)	64.8 (16.43)	81.5 (20.12)	77.5 (36.00)	73.1 (16.35)	0.79 (0.123)
Diabetes mellitus only (n = 309)	-7.2	-7.3	-5.8	-3.5	-1.3	-1.8	0.7	0.2	-0.06
Hypertension only (n = 557)	-4.3	-4.1	-3.4	-3.3	-0.5	0.5	1.0	0.3	-0.05
Heart disease only (n = 125)	-9.5	-10.1	-7.3	-5.2	-3.6	-0.8	-4.7	-0.3	-0.09
Musculoskeletal illnesses only^‡ (n = 1389)	-4.7	-3.6	-6.9	-4.4	-3.1	-2.7	-0.8	-2.5	-0.08
	Adjusted differences in mean scores due to medical condition^§
	PF	RP	BP	GH	VT	SF	RE	MH	SF-6D
No chronic medical condition^† (n = 3155)	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.00
Diabetes mellitus only (n = 309)	-2.9 *	-3.7	-1.8	-2.36 *	-1.3	-0.1	0.3	-0.2	-0.03 **
Hypertension only (n = 557)	-2.6 *	-3.1 *	-1.5	-1.6	0.1	0.6	-1.0	0.1	-0.03 ***
Heart disease only (n = 125)	-5.0 *	-6.5 *	-3.5	-4.0 *	-3.9 *	0.9	-5.9	-1.0	-0.06 ***
Musculoskeletal illnesses only^‡ (n = 1389)	-3.8 ***	-3.1 **	-6.4 ***	-3.9 ***	-2.9 ***	-3.1 ***	-3.4 **	-2.6 ***	-0.08 ***

^†Mean (SD) scores
^‡Musculoskeletal illnesses included rheumatism, back pain and other bone or muscle illnesses.
^§Multiple linear regression, adjusted for influence of ethnicity, age, gender and years of education.
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001
Abbreviations: PF = Physical Functioning, RP = Role-Physical, BP = Bodily Pain, GH = General Health, VT = Vitality, SF = Social Functioning, RE = Role -Emotional, MH = Mental Health

ISSN: 1477-7525