Quality of Life in Patients with Allergic Rhinitis

Purpose: Allergic Rhinitis (AR) is a chronic disorder that has an increasingly elevating incidence in all communities and affects quality of life of the patients. This research has been planned descriptively to assess the quality of life of patients who received diagnose of allergic rhinitis.

Method: The sampling of the research comprised of 85 patients who referred to the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Clinic of Medical Faculty Hospital, Ege University in February 2007 and received diagnose of allergic rhinitis. Data were collected by a questionnaire that was developed by the researchers and involving the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals and the SF36 Quality of Life Scale. Questionnaires were completed by researchers by using face-to-face interview method.

Results: It was observed that the most frequently seen symptoms in patients were sneezing (62.4 %) and obstruction in nose (62.4 %), 61.2 % of them did not receive a regular treatment, 88.2 % referred to a physician when had a complaint, 82.4 % received information related to their diseases and 80 % received this information from health personnel. When the distribution of the quality of life subscale scores was examined according to patient age groups, it was detected that the mean scores of “role difficulty (emotional)” subscale significantly reduced as age increased. In women the mean scores of “Physiologic function”, “role difficulty (physical)”, “energy/vitality”, “social function” and “role difficulty (emotional)” subscales were found less than in men.

Conclusion: It was determined that patients with allergic rhinitis to feel themselves fatigued and exhausted did affect their quality of life (vitality) and they did not experience any problems concerning their physical functions.