[Quality of life evaluation in the patient with allergic rhinits]. / Evaluación de la calidad de vida del paciente con rinitis alérgica.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The introduction of the evaluation tools, such as the quality of life-questionnaires, allows to assess how functional alterations due to an illness affect the patient's life. OBJECTIVE: To know the emotional, social and occupational state of allergic rhinitis patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Quality of life questionnaires were applied once to a group of 50 patients with allergic rhinitis diagnosis from the clinic immunology and allergy service, from May to August 2002. RESULTS: Female sex was the predominant (64%), with ages from 8 to 74 years (average of 36.9 years). In women severe rhinitis was observed in 37.5%, and in men mild rhinitis was found in 61%. The main occupations were student (20%), administrative (20%) and teacher (18%). Nasal symptoms appeared when doing the following activities housework in 18 cases (36%), reading in 10 cases (20%) and house maintenance in 5 cases (10%). In the analysis done to know the usefulness of the questionnaire a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 85% were found. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of life was found to be altered, affected and closely related to the presentation of nasal symptoms when doing different daily-life activities, which produces dissatisfaction in patients.