Symptoms of chronic rhinosinusitis differentially impact general health-related quality of life

Abstract

Background: The degree to which different sinonasal symptoms contribute to the overall quality of life (QOL) detriment in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) patients remains unknown. In this study we sought to characterize the effect of different CRS symptoms on the general health-related QOL in patients.

Methodology: We performed a prospective cross-sectional study of 131 adult patients with CRS. Sinonasal symptoms were evaluated using the 22-item Sinonasal Outcomes Test (SNOT-22) and general health-related QOL was evaluated using the EuroQol 5-Dimensional general health-related QOL survey (EQ5D) and visual analog scale (EQ5D-VAS). Health utility values (HUV) were determined using responses to the EQ5D. SNOT-22 scores were broken down into subdomain scores for sleep, nasal, otologic/facial pain and emotional function symptoms.

Results: The otologic/facial pain subdomain score consistently had the largest impact on EQ5D-VAS and HUV. After otologic/facial pain, the sleep subdomain score had the second largest effect while the nasal subdomain score had the least impact on general health-related QOL.

Conclusions: Different types of CRS symptoms - most prominently otologic/facial pain and sleep-related symptoms - and their underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms may differentially affect the general health-related QOL detriment associated with CRS. These findings raise the possibility that treatment of the various symptoms associated with CRS may lead to differential improvement in general-health related QOL.