Background and purpose: The metabolic syndrome, a constellation of
abnormalities, has been drawing people?s attention recently. According to Dr.
Chen?s survey in Year 2002, the prevalence rates of the metabolic syndrome among males and females were 16.9% and 13.8%, respectively (Chen et al., 2003). In addition, its prevalence is sharply increasing along the aged (Ford & Li, 2008). However, the magnitude of public health burden of the metabolic
syndrome is still not understood. This study intended to compare the health- related quality of life among metabolic syndrome group, high risk group, and risk free patients. Additionally, a regression analysis was carried out to exam the relationship between regular clinical tools and diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome.
Methods: By using systematic sampling method, we enrolled 1205 respondents with over the age of 20 from 5 different out-patients clinics in a regional hospital.
Those respondents were categorized into metabolic syndrome group, high risk group, and risk free patients by reviewing their medical records. All subjects were face-to-face interviewed with a structured questionnaire composed of the Taiwan version of the short-form 36-item health survey (SF-36) and parts of National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), Year 2005. The SPSS12.0 software was employed for statistical inference.
Results: After adjusting confounding factors, we found that metabolism syndrome group has significantly both better physical and mental health-related quality of life than that of high risk group as well as risk free group (p<0.05). We found that the average scores of physical health-related quality of life among the metabolic syndrome group is significantly lower than that of the other two control groups (p<0.05). On the Contrary, the average scores of mental health-related quality of life among the metabolic syndrome group is significantly higher than that of the other two control groups (p<0.05).
Among 5 clinical tools to diagnose the metabolic syndrome, the circumference of waist (OR = 22.15, 95% CI 10.84-45.28, B = 3.10) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) values (OR = 25.43, 95% CI 9.38-68.95, B = 3.24) possess the most significant relationships with the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Although our study showed metabolism syndrome group has significantly both better physical and mental health-related quality of life than that of high risk group as well as risk free patients, lack of healthy general population comparison in this study suggests the quality of life of the metabolic syndrome population still remains unsolved. On the other side, our study has shown keeping an exercise habit can improve both the physical and psychological health-related quality of life.
The close relationship between the measurement of the waist circumference and the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome implies a more cost-effective way to diagnose the metabolic syndrome and strongly suggests that the circumference of waist should be include into the routine check up list for better monitoring the metabolic syndrome.
