Socio-Demographic Factors Affecting Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of Tuberculosis Patients in Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria

Tuberculosis continues to pose major public health challenges worldwide, often affecting patients' physical and psychological wellbeing. We investigated the quality of life experienced by tuberculosis patients through validated health measurement instruments. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 251 tuberculosis patients. We collected demographic information and assessed quality of life using the Short Form-36 questionnaire for both physical and mental health dimensions. We classified participants into physical function categories (defective, normal, high) and mental health groups (significant depression risk, depression risk, normal, high mental status). Our study population were primarily youths, with 39.4% aged 15-30 years and 33.5% aged 31-45 years. Women comprised 62.5% of participants, most of whom had secondary education (53.8%) and were married (49.4%). We found mean scores of 72.6 for the Physical Component Summary and 68.1 for the Mental Component Summary. Regarding physical functioning, 90.0% of patients showed high levels, while 4.0% had normal function and 6.0% demonstrated defective function. For mental health, 86.5% exhibited high mental status, 9.6% were normal, 1.6% showed depression risk, and 2.4% had significant depression risk. We observed a significant association between gender and physical functioning (p = 0.034), with women showing superior outcomes. However, we found no meaningful relationships between demographic factors and mental health status. Most tuberculosis patients in our study maintained relatively good physical and mental health despite their diagnosis, reflected in the favorable mean scores of 72.6 and 68.1 for physical and mental components respectively. Nevertheless, targeted interventions appear necessary for the small proportion experiencing functional difficulties or psychological distress. Our cross-sectional approach limits our ability to determine causation and track quality of life changes throughout treatment. The cross-sectional design prevents us from establishing causal relationships and understanding how quality of life evolves during the treatment journey.