Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Thyroid dysfunction affects quality of life (QoL) in untreated patients. However, patients with high thyroid autoantibodies complain about symptoms that resemble thyroid dysfunction even if they are euthyroid. The aim of this study was to evaluate QoL in euthyroid patients with elevated thyroid autoantibodies.

Methods: Patients who admitted to Endocrinology clinic with symptoms of thyroid dysfunction and no other disease were included in the study. Thyroid function tests and thyroid autoantibodies (anti-thyroglobulin and anti-thyroid peroxidase) were studied. Patients with normal thyroid functions but high autoantibody titers (n=100) were included as the patient group. Healthy individuals with normal thyroid functions and normal autoantibody (n=100) titers were included as the control group. Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaire was used to assess and compare QoL between the groups. Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories were used to determine whether the effect of thyroid autoantibody positivity on patients’ QoL is affected by the presence of depression and anxiety.

Results: Physical functioning (P=0.004), role physical (<0.001), role emotional (<0.001), social functioning (0.017), mental health (<0.001), vitality (<0.001), physical (<0.001) and mental (<0.001) component scores were significantly lower in patients compared to controls. Beck Depression (P<0.001) and Anxiety (P<0.001) Inventory scores were significantly higher in the patient group. Only bodily pain and general health were similar between the groups. In the patient group, all SF-36 domains were negatively correlated with both Beck Depression and Beck Anxiety scores.

Conclusion: This study revealed that QoL in euthyroid patients with high autoantibody titers was lower compared to healthy controls, and also negatively affected with depression and anxiety. Both physical and mental components of QoL are affected. Thyroid autoantibodies may therefore affect QoL and well-being independent of thyroid function tests.