Quality of Life among Adults with Confirmed Dengue in Brazil

The main objective of this study was to measure the quality of life (QoL) during a dengue episode. We conducted a facility-based survey in central Brazil in 2005 and recruited 372 laboratory-confirmed dengue patients greater than 12 years of age in hospital and ambulatory settings. We administered the World Health Organization QoL instrument approximately 15 days after the onset of symptoms. We used principal component analysis with varimax rotation to identify domains related to QoL. The median age of interviewees was 36 years. Most (85%) reported their general health status as very good or good before the dengue episode. Although ambulatory patients were mainly classified as having dengue fever, 44.8% of hospitalized patients had dengue hemorrhagic fever or intermediate dengue. Principal component analysis identified five principal components related to cognition, sleep and energy, mobility, self-care, pain, and discomfort, which explained 73% of the variability of the data matrix. Hospitalized patients had significantly lower mean scores for dimensions cognition, self-care, and pain than ambulatory patients. This investigation documented the generally poor QoL during a dengue episode caused by the large number of domains affected and significant differences between health care settings.