The Effect Of Patient Education On Health Related Quality Of Life Among Allergic Rhinitis Patients In Cairo University Outpateint Clinics Egypt

Abstract Allergic rhinitis AR is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the nose. Although it is not a life-threatening condition it has been documented to have a significant effect on health related quality of life HRQoL. This was a prospective interventional study conducted over a cohort of AR patients to assess the effect of patient education on their HRQoL through the Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire with Standardized Activities RQLQS. Patients were randomly divided into two groups each contained 100 patients where Group A received both pharmacological treatment and patient education while Group B received pharmacological treatment alone. RQLQS was used to measure the patients HRQoL for both groups during the pre and post intervention phases. In the pre-interventional phase both studied groups were homogenous in the RQLSS domains mean scores and also in the total RQLQS mean scores with no statistical significance between them. In the post-interventional phase the RQLQS total mean score showed improvement with statistical significance between both groups with better score to the group A with a total mean score of 3.38 0.68 while group B scored 3.66 0.55. RQLQS domains mean scores showed improvement in almost all the domains where Group A showed better mean scores in six domains. Providing structured patient education on AR has improved the patients RQLQS scores more than the pharmacological treatment alone. Patient education is an essential component in the managing AR patients.