The Effect of Behavioral and Socioeconomic Factors on Health-related Quality of Life Among Adults with Depressive Disorder in the United States

• Main Author: Farhah, Nesren
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2020
• Subjects: Health sciences
• ISBN: 9798607322694

Background: Depressive disorder is a significant public health problem that is related to higher rates of chronic disease, increased health care utilization, and impaired functioning (Katon, 2003). Previous studies of health-related quality of life and depressive disorder have relied on measuring the score of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among patients with depressive disorder. This research expands upon the previous work and designed to determine and measure the impact of socioeconomic and behavioral factors associated with depressive disorder on HRQoL among adults aged 18 and older. Objectives: This study aims to determine and measure the effect of significant behavioral factors such as smoking, alcohol use, exercise, and hours of sleep and socioeconomic factors such as education level, marital status, employment status, and income level on HRQOL outcomes that include activity limitation, physical health problems, and mental health problems among adults with depressive disorder in the United States. Methods: The data used in this study was obtained from 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The sample size consists of 88,233 patients including male and female aged 18 and older. Statistical Analysis System Software (SAS) 9.4 was employed to analyze the data. Both descriptive and inferential analyses were performed to examine the data distributions, sample metrics and associations among the studied variables. Furthermore, predictive analysis, namely logistic regression modeling, was conducted to predict and define the relation between the behavioral and socioeconomic factors and HRQoL outcomes. Result: The present study found that depressive disorder has a statistically significant association with health-related quality of life. Adults with depressive disorder have higher chance of having activity limitation by 80.84%, physical health problems by 75.70%, and mental health problems by 87.99% than other adults with no depressive disorder. One of the major negative behavioral factors was smoking status. Depressive disorder patients with positive smoking stats have higher chance of having activity limitation by 59.10%, physical health problems by 55.89%, and mental health problems by 59.77% than others with negative smoking status. In addition, the most negative socioeconomic factors that has a great effect on HRQoL among depressive disorder patients is low income level. According to the result of this study, depressive disorder patients with low income level had higher chance of having activity limitation by 66.74%, physical health problems by 63.38%, and mental health problems by 60.11% than depressive disorder patients with high income level. The result of this study showed that all investigated behavioral and socioeconomic factors have a statistically significant effect on health-related quality of life among adults with depressive disorder. Conclusion: There is a significant relationship between depressive disorder and health-related quality of life among adults. This relation comes from the impact of depression on individual’s satisfaction with life and well-being. Measuring and assessing the association between these depressive disorder associated behavioral and socioeconomic factors and health-related quality of life would be critical for planning and conducting related clinical trials, important for improving patients’ quality of care, and for providing information for the policymaker and the public alike.