Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Diabetes is a chronic disease with significant negative impact on quality of life. Hypoglycemia and weight gain are two important variables that can impact HRQoL negatively in patients with diabetes under treatment with medication.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate HRQoL tools and questionnaires and to explore if the HRQoL instruments address issues related to hypoglycemia and weight gain, which impact HRQoL along other domains.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted utilizing databases on PubMed, Google and Google Scholar to find HRQoL tools that have been utilized in diabetes care. The tools in English language were selected. The construct of the HRQoL tools were analysed by the domains.

Results: In general, three types of HRQoL tools and questionnaires have been utilized in diabetes care (total N=84): diabetes specific (N=27), domain specific (N=33) and general HRQoL (N=24). 9.5% (N=8) and 2.5% (N=2) of tools had domains for hypoglycemia or weight changes, respectively. None of the tools had both domains, simultaneously. 88% (N=74) of tools had no domain for hypoglycemia or weight changes.

Conclusion: This study illustrated that few HRQoL instruments incorporated domains related to hypoglycemia and weight gain. This calls for developing more comprehensive HRQoL instruments to measure the impact of hypoglycemia and weight gain on quality of life of patient with diabetes on pharmacotherapy. Addressing such an issue is very timely, in light of recent utilization of newer classes of medications in diabetes care such as SGLT2I and GLP1A which have safer glycemic profile and cause weight loss.