Quality of Life among Patients with Neuropathic Pain Attending Outpatient Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital, Kolkata, India

Introduction: Neuropathic pain is a complex, painful condition, difficult to diagnose and treat with a negative impact on patients’ health and quality of life. Objectives: To evaluate the correlation between neuropathic pain and quality of life along with identifying the limiting aspects in the daily life of the patients suffering from it; and also, to find out association of socio-demographic factors with quality of life. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted for 3 months among 404 patients with neuropathic pain attending the outpatient department of Neuro-medicine and Physical medicine of a tertiary care teaching Hospital, Kolkata using WHO QOL-BREF Scale. Data were tabulated in MS-Excel spreadsheet, statistical analysis was done in SPSS version 26. Results: Among the study participants 264 (65.4%) were female, about 252 (62.2%) were Muslim and 372 (92.2%) were married. More than half of the study participants had poor quality of life 238 (59%) with burning 343 (93%), tingling 365 (90%) sensation. A total of 290 (72%) of the study participants were suffering from severe pain. It was found that the limiting aspect was the psychological domain. Significant association (p<0.05) was seen with age, gender, religion and education with QOL. Conclusion: Majority of the study participants had poor quality of life (59%) with the greatest impact on psychological domain after the onset of pain and presented a positive attitude for treatment towards it.