Impact of gender, age, and comorbidities on quality of life in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis.

Abstract

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: To evaluate the impact of gender, age and comorbidities of health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) assessments in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. METHODS: The prospective administration of the German Adapted Version of the Sino-Nasal Outcome Test 20 (SNOT-20 GAV) to patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. Two hundred and two patients with chronic rhinosinusitis filled out the questionnaire before functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) and again at the 3-month follow-up. MAIN RESULTS: Gender had a significant impact on the Overall Score (OS) and on the General Quality of Life Score (GQOL) of the SNOT-20 GAV but no influence on the disease-specific scores of 'Primary Nasal Symptoms' (PNS) and 'Secondary Rhinogenous Symptoms' (SRS). Age did not influence HR-QOL. Patients with comorbidities demonstrated lower HR-QOL scores. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSION: Women had significantly poorer QOL scores than men. It seems that the influence of gender reflects general HR-QOL views rather than illness-related expectations.