Health-related quality of life in young adults with asthma

SummaryBackgroundThe aim was to study health-related quality of life, five years after an intervention study among young adults with asthma.MethodThe design was a follow-up study of a cohort of young adults with asthma (n = 64) and 248 general population controls. Both groups were investigated at follow-up with a respiratory questionnaire and one generic quality-of-life instrument, and the asthma cohort also completed one-asthma-specific questionnaire. The material was analyzed with multivariate models.ResultsFemale gender and low FEV 1 at baseline predicted both a decline during follow-up and a low quality of life at follow-up. The asthma cohort and controls scored similarly regarding generic quality of life. However, in the asthma cohort, females scored significantly lower in the physical dimension of the generic instrument, especially in the domain of general health.ConclusionsThere is an association between low FEV1 and a decline in quality of life among young adults with asthma, i.e. low FEV1 predicts a decline in quality of life during a five-year period. Young females with asthma seem to have lower quality of life compared with young males with asthma.