Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: To assess perceived health status in people with sub-clinical hypothyroidism (SCH) who may have physical and psychological symptoms of hypothyroidism, which could affect their health perceptions.

Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 71 adults with SCH and no other chronic disease, age range 18 - 64 years. Patients completed the eight scales of the Short Form 36 Health Survey questionnaire version 2 (SF-36v2), a widely used tool to measure health status. Their SF-36 scores were compared to UK normative data after matching for age and sex, and are reported as z scores. The UK normative data has been obtained previously from a large community sample (n=8889), randomly selected from General Practitioner Records from four Health Authorities.

Results: The mean Thyrotropin (TSH) levels were 6.6 milliunits per litre (reference range 0.4 - 4.0). Scores of all eight SF-36 scales were significantly lower in people with SCH compared to the normative population. A negative score (compared to zero of the normative population) indicates worse health status. The most significantly impaired aspect of health status was Vitality with a z score (95%CI) of -1.01(-0.74 to -1.29). Z scores for other scales, which showed a moderate difference, were Role-Physical (measuring role limitations due to physical problems)-0.73(-0.43 to -1.04), General Health -0.5(-0.25 to -0.76), Social Functioning -0.55 (-0.29 to -0.83) and Role-Emotional -0.6 (-0.32 to -0.89). There was no correlation between scores for any scales and TSH or free thyroxine levels. Women tended to have non-significantly lower scores on all scales when compared to men.

Conclusion: Perceived health status is significantly impaired in people with SCH when compared to UK normative population scores. This needs to be taken into consideration by clinicians when managing patients with this disease.