Research Article Factors Associated with Health-Related Quality of Life among Jordanian Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcer Ahmad Abu Alrub, 1 Dana Hyassat, 1 Yousef S. Khader , 2 Radwan Bani-Mustafa, 1 Nidal Younes, 1 and Kamel Ajlouni 1 1 The National Center for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Genetics, Amman, Jordan 2 Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Jordan Correspondence should be addressed to Kamel Ajlouni; ajlouni@ju.edu.jo Received 29 September 2018; Accepted 21 November 2018; Published 17 January 2019 Academic Editor: Konstantinos Papatheodorou Copyright © 2019 Ahmad Abu Alrub et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. This study is aimed at determining factors associated with the quality of life among Jordanian diabetic patients with foot ulcers. Methods. 144 consecutive patients with diabetic foot ulcers aged ≥ 18 years who were attending the diabetic foot clinic at a diabetes-specialized center were included in this study. Health-related quality of life was assessed using two self-administered questionnaires: Diabetic Foot Scale-Short Form (DFS-SF) and Short Form-8 (SF-8). Results. Patients with diabetic foot ulcer had low mean DFS-SF score and low mean scores on physical and mental component summary scales (PCS8 and MCS8). Males had significantly higher DFS-SF score indicating better health-related quality of life than females (P value 0.038). A patient with stressful life events had significantly lower health-related quality of life using DFS-SF scale and SF-8 summary scales. Patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD) and patients with obesity had lower DFS-SF and PCS8 quality of life. Conclusion. Patients with diabetic foot ulcer had low quality of life. Female gender, obesity, presence of PVD, and stressful life events were the most important factors associated with lower quality of life in patients with diabetic foot ulcer. 1. Introduction Diabetic foot ulcers have substantial economic burden on health care systems [1]. It is estimated that 15% of all diabetic patients will develop a foot ulcer during the course of their lifetime [2]. Diabetic foot ulcers progress to major amputa- tion in 14% to 24% of patients [3]. The five-year mortality rate is also high, reaching 50-68% among patients who undergo major lower limb amputation [4–6]. Additionally, diabetic foot ulcers markedly increase the morbidity in patients with diabetes, leading to an increase in the number of outpatient appointments and emergency room visits as well as hospitalization days with greater risks of osteomyelitis and amputation [7–10]. Diabetic foot ulcers negatively affects patients’ perceived Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) due to decreased mobility and consequently the ability to perform daily activities and increasing dependence on others [11, 12]. Moreover, the perceived stress linked to wound healing or reulceration and the fear of foot amputation both increase the negative mood and lead to sleep disturbance in patients with diabetic foot ulcers [13]. Reduction of quality of life in such patients not only affects the outcome of treatment but also increases health care expenditures as a result of the frequent referring to physicians and clinical care settings [14]. Psychological comorbidity such as depression confers additional risks on diabetic patients resulting in poorer outcomes and poorer self-care. Depression in type 2 diabetes had been shown to be associated with twice the rate of first diabetic foot ulcer over 4 years of follow-up period and higher rates of amputation [15]. Moreover, depression in patients developing the first diabetic foot ulcer is associated with twofold increase of mortality over 5 years [16]. Although the impact of diabetic foot ulcers on HRQoL was studied in many countries, there is scarcity of data in Jordan on the impact of diabetes complications including Hindawi Journal of Diabetes Research Volume 2019, Article ID 4706720, 8 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4706720