HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH HAEMOPHILIA AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS: A STUDY IN CROATIA AND SLOVENIA

Background: There are only a few studies in patients with haemophilia (PWH) that examined both quality of life and depressive symptoms, with only few studies examining their association. Aim of this study was to examine the association between depressive symptoms and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in PWH from Croatia and Slovenia. Subjects and methods: A total of 112 adult PWH on prophylactic (73%) or on-demand (27%) treatment were included in the study (median age 46 years, range 18-73 years). Depressive symptoms were assessed with BDI-II, HRQoL with SF-36v2, demographic and socioeconomic data were collected using a questionnaire, and clinical data were obtained from medical records. Results: All HRQoL scores were significantly negatively correlated with BDI-II in the -0.42 to -0.70 range (all p<0.05). Sociodemographic and clinical variables explained 28-51% of HRQoL variance scores. Depressive symptoms explained additional variance for six HRQoL domain scores, with incremental variance being larger for mental domain scores (ranging between 1027%), and for Mental Component Summary score (26%). Conclusions: This study's findings support that having depressive symptoms is associated with HRQoL of PWH, more so in the mental health than in the physical health domains.