Impaired social status of growth hormone deficient adults as compared to controls with short or normal stature. Dutch Growth Hormone Working Group

Abstract

Objectives: In adults with growth hormone deficiency (GHD) social problems have been reported, but so far the relative contributions of GHD, additional pituitary deficiencies and short stature have not been distinguished. We therefore compared social data from GHD patients with social data from controls with short or normal stature. Furthermore we investigated whether social problems are caused solely by the deficiency of GH or also by the associated absence of other pituitary hormones.

Design: A questionnaire was sent to patients and controls with items on education, profession, income, partner and living situation.

Patients: Two hundred and ten GHD patients treated in childhood but not in adulthood with GH (93 isolated GHD (IGHD), 111 patients with multiple pituitary deficiency (MPD)) were compared with 53 short controls (height in childhood < third percentile for population) and 39 normal stature controls.

Results: There were no differences between short and normal controls. There were also no differences between IGHD and MPD patients in any of the investigated items. GHD patients did not differ from controls on education level, but scored lower on the profession scale, had a lower income and had a partner less often; if they had a partner they less often had children; also, more of them lived with their parents.

Conclusion: Since patients with multiple pituitary deficiency did not differ from patients with isolated growth hormone deficiency, this suggests that the lower scores on the social parameters are the result of the growth hormone deficiency itself. Since short stature controls had higher scores than patients with growth hormone deficiency and did not differ from normal stature controls in any of the aspects investigated, it seems unlikely that the problems of the patients with growth hormone deficiency can be attributed to short stature.