Assessment of quality of life in patients with chronic wounds and vascular diseases,Erfassung der Lebensqualität bei chronischen Wunden und Gefäßerkrankungen

Results: Several studies using generic quality of life instruments have demonstrated the significant negative impact of chronic wounds on HRQoL. Chronic pain and limited mobility adversely affect the social lives and emotional status of these patients. Disease-specific instruments proved to be more sensitive for evaluating changes in wound status and HRQoL than generic measures. However, few wound-specific QoL questionnaires have been validated so far, especially for patients with PAD.

Background: Patients with chronic wounds due to peripheral arterial disease (PAD), chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), and diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) experience significant limitations in their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Therefore, the aim of all therapeutic measures should be to improve this HRQoL. In this review, recent results on HRQoL research in these groups of patients are summarized and disease-specific instruments for assessment of HRQoL are introduced.

Methods: Summary of the literature on HRQoL in patients with leg ulcer and diabetic foot ulcer.

Conclusions: Chronic wounds have an adverse effect on HRQoL. Therefore, clinical studies on chronic wounds should always assess HRQoL in addition to traditional outcome measures. The combination of a generic and a disease-specific questionnaire reflects self-assessed HRQoL and changes in quality of life most accurately.