Socio-demographic and clinical predictors of quality of life in patients with schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder

Abstract 

This article discusses the relationships between socio-demographic, clinical characteristics and Quality of Life (QOL) of individuals with schizophrenia. The client version of the Canadian version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life Index (CaW-QLI) was used with a population of 182 individuals with either schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder. Multivariate analyses of variance with Tukey post hoc tests were used to assess differences between groups defined according to socio-demographic and clinical characteristics on all sub-scale scores in addition to the global score on the CaW-QLI. Relationships between socio-demographic characteristics and QOL were found for gender, age, education, employment status and living arrangement. Differences in QOL were found between groups with different clinical characteristics, such as diagnosis, hospitalization during the last 12 months and age at first hospitalization. Using socio-demographic and clinical variables in addition to psychosocial variables appears to be promising for understanding QOL in psychotic patients. Methodological considerations for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Quality of life, Schizophrenia, Gender, Age, Employment, Clinical characteristics