Health-related quality of life in major thalassemic patients

To assess quality of life of thalassemic patients and compare the findings with the same age group of healthy people. 250 thalassemic patients referring to the department of thalassemic of Dastgheib hospital and 100 healthy people in the same age group participated in a cross-sectional study in Shiraz, Iran. They were selected by convenient sampling. The SF-36 was used to measure quality of life. It consists of 36 questions that measure 8 health-related domains namely: physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, general health, role emotional, mental health, social functioning and vitality. The results showed that control group had higher scores than thalassemic patients in physical measures but there were no significant differences between patients and the healthy people in mental component measures. Female patients had higher scores than male patients in social functioning. Patients with milder disease had better scores than patients with sever disease in physical functioning. The findings revealed that patients with thalassemia experience a relatively poor quality of life.