Health-Related Quality of Life Study of Leprosy Affected People of a Leprosarium of Northern India

The quality of life (QoL) of leprosy-affected people (LAP) of a leprosarium at Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India were assessed across sociodemographic, dermatology, and neurological factors using DLQI, WHOQOL-BREF, and DN4 questionnaires and statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS. QoL of LAPs measured through DLQ1 and WHOQOL-BREF was found to be low with most leprosy affected people having a significant effect of leprosy disease on their QoL, the highest affected domain was social relationship followed by psychological domain. QoL had a strong relationship with age, gender and type of leprosy disease; with progression in age the QoL impairments increased; more QoL impairments in females than males and multibacillary (MB) disease rather than paucibacillary (PB category) of leprosy that showed lesser QoL impairments. Females experienced more neuropathic pain than males, and quality of life in the social relationship followed by the psychological domain were worst affected and were found to have a strong correlation with age, gender, and disease category. QoL was also observed to be severely affected due to the pain and disability associated with the leprosy, and psychological, social, and environmental factors contributed to its reduction. A multi-font strategy towards improving the quality of life may include several measures such as early diagnosis and treatment ; active surveillance and treatment of wounds to reduce the intensity of pain; organization of rehabilitation programmes; creating occupational opportunities and continued counselling to reduce diverse social and psychological complexities, and reintegration with the society to reduce social exclusion.