People with diabetic foot ulcers have poor overall quality of life

People with diabetic foot ulcers have been found to have poor overall quality of life and this was worse in those with larger ulcers, ulcers for longer, and ulcers complicated by ischaemia or infection.

Aussie researchers from the University of Wollongong pooled the data from 12 different studies investigating health-related quality of life in people with diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) for these new findings.

Overall, they found people with DFU had poor physical functioning, vitality and general health-related quality of life. They also found that this was more likely in those with long ulcer durations, large ulcers >5cm2, PAD/ischaemia, pain, high C-reactive protein, high HbA1C or were overweight.

They recommend that new evidence-based interventions are required to improve the quality of life of people with DFU. However, they also recommend that using multi-disciplinary evidence-based treatment to heal these ulcers as quickly as possible is probably the best current strategy to improve our patients overall quality of life.

Click to read more at the DFA Australian Research Repository or Pubmed.

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