ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to determine the quality of life perceived by patients diagnosed to have hypertension and the factors affecting the quality of life. This descriptive study was performed on patients followed-up with the diagnosis of hypertention as either outpatient (n=232) or inpatient (n=89) at the Department of Internal Medicine of Gulhane Military Medical Academy between May 2006 and April 2007. A questionnaire constituted by two parts was used to collect data. In the first part, some sociodemographic features of participants, clinical aspects of the disease and availability of comorbidity were questionned. In the second part the scale of short form- 36 (SF-36) was used in order to assess the quality of life perceived by the participants. The mean score of the short form-36 scale of the participants was 53.0±19.3. Health related quality of life perceived by hypertensive patients with various risk factors was lower than that of patients without such risk factors. Risk factors of hypertensive patients should be considered on planning the treatment of these patients.

Keywords: Perception, general quality of life scale, hypertention, SF-36, comorbidity, quality of life