The Quality of Life in Patients With Behcet's Disease

Purpose: This study aims to evaluate the quality of life (QoL) in patients with Behcet's disease. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The sample of the study consists of 94 volunteer patients, who were diagnosed with Behcet's disease at least 3 months before the study, were literate, and never diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. Short Form-36 QoL Scale and personal information form were used to collect data. The mean, percentage distribution of the sample were calculated: one-way analysis of variance, student t test, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, Shapiro-Wilk tests were used to evaluate the data. Results: It was found that QoL scores in patients with Behcet's disease were low and wasaffected by gender, age, work status, education status as well as complaints of oral and genital ulcerations, arthritis, skin lesions and bodily pain. Patients who were suffering from bodily pain, sleeplessness and fatigue were found to score lower in the QoL scale. Moreover, patients who states that their social relationships are affected by the disease had significantly lower QoL scores. Conclusion: The need for evaluating the patients holistically and of the planning of their care were highlighted. Copyright (C) 2011, Korean Society of Nursing Science. Published by Elsevier. All rights reserved.