Health-Related Quality of Life and Influencing Factors in Drug Addicts based on the scale QLICD-DA: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract BackgroundDrug abuse has many negative effects not only on individuals but also on society. Nowadays, researchers pay a lot of attention to the quality of life of drug-dependent persons. However, there are few scales available to measure the quality of life of people with substance-abuse disorders. A quality of life scale for patients with drug addiction/dependence (QLICD-DA) developed in China according to their actual situation could be used to measure the quality of life of drug abusers. It has good validity and reliability and is sensitive to the quality of life of drug-dependent persons. MethodsWe selected 192 drug-dependent persons as participants and they all completed the general information questionnaire and the QLICD-DA. We used a t-test to compare the scores of the quality of life of the participants with the norm in different domains, then we used one-way ANOVA to screen for variables. A stepwise regression method was applied to explore the influencing factors of the quality of life of the participants.ResultsThe quality of life of the participants was lower than the norm in the physiological domain, psychological domain, social domain, and common general domain, and the differences were statistically significant (p<.0.001). Sex and mode of drug abuse were the influencing factors in total score (p=0.006, p<0.001) and specific domain (p<0.001, p=0.019). Past family atmosphere and the mode of drug abuse were the influencing factors in the common general domain (p=0.027, p=0.037).ConclusionThe quality of life of people dependent on drugs was worse than that of patients with other chronic diseases, and the influencing factors of the quality of life of drug abusers were sex, mode of drug abuse, and past family atmosphere. This study also verified the application of QLICD-DA in a real-life setting.