Der Einfluss von Fatigue auf die Lebensqualität von Patienten mit Leberzirrhose

Fatigue is perceived as a persistent sense of exhaustion, the inability both to handle with everyday routines and to perform physical and mental work. Fatigue is often considered to be a non-specific consequence of illness. There is a strong clinical impression that many patients with chronic liver disease develop fatigue symptoms. The aim of this work was therefore to determine its importance and its impact on quality of life, mental health and cognitive functioning in patients with cirrhosis without hepatic encephalopathy. 43 cirrhotic patients Child-Pugh class A (12 had a hepatitis C virus infection, 16 had alcoholic cirrhosis, 9 cryptogenic cirrhosis, 1 Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, 1 had Wilson disease, 2 had Hemochromatosis, 1 had Autoimmune hepatitis), 32 patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohns disease or ulcerative colitis) for comparison with a non cirrhotic group of patients and 38 healthy controls were enrolled. Patients and controls completed self-report questionnaires to evaluate fatigue (Visual Analogue Scale, Fatigue Severity Scale, Fatigue Impact Scale), their quality of life (Modulares System zur Lebenszufriedenheit, Fragen zur Lebenszufriedenheit, Nottingham Health Profile, Adjective Mood Scale, Complaint List), mental health (Beck Depression Inventory and Symptom Check List) and cognitive functioning (Fragebogen erlebter Aufmerksamkeitsdefizite). At first everyone had to answer the question as to whether they feel tired or not in order to be able to form two groups of subjective fatigue. Half of the patients with cirrhosis and inflammatory bowel disease reported fatigue. Fatigue can therefore be expected to occur with progression of a chronic illness and is non-specific for chronic liver disease. All cirrhotic patients with hepatitis c virus infection reported fatigue. These findings indicate that the hepatitis c virus infection is associated with fatigue in end-stage liver disease. Previous studies have shown this relationship for patients with hepatitis c virus infection without cirrhosis. There is no difference between cirrhotic patients with hepatitis c virus or alcoholic cirrhosis in severity of fatigue in contrast to the results for patients with hepatitis c virus infection without cirrhosis in other studies. Fatigue has the main impact on the physical dimension of patient’s quality of life whereas the common aspects of quality of life like family, job and financial security are not affected. A relevant depression was not verifiable in cirrhotic patients as well as in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. The general mental health also is unaffected by fatigue. In end-stage liver disease aetiology is of importance neither for fatigue nor for quality of life, mental health or cognitive abilities. There was no association identified between fatigue, quality of life, mental health or cognitive abilities and age or gender.

Grantor dc:publisher

Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University

Year dc:date

2004

Author dc:creator

• Aull, Katrin

Contributors dc:contributor

• Matern, Siegfried

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/610
• Medizin
• Fatigue
• Leberzirrhose
• Lebensqualität
• kognitive Störungen
• psychische Belastung

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

ger

Identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-121358%22

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:publications.rwth-aachen.de:59582