International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | January 2021 | Vol 8 | Issue 1 Page 207 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Yadav P et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2021 Jan;8(1):207-211 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Impact of severity of diabetic retinopathy on quality of life in type 2 Indian diabetic patients Preeti Yadav, S. V. Singh, Manisha Nada*, Monika Dahiya INTRODUCTION Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most important emerging public health challenges of 21 st century and burden is increasing because of population growth, high life expectancy, urbanization and sedentary life style. The situation is more alarming in developing countries as three-fourth of worldwide diabetes affected population is from developing countries only. India has an estimated 77 million people with DM, which makes it the second most affected country in the world after China. 1 Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a well-known complication of long standing and poorly controlled diabetes mellitus which hampers patient’s physical, social and emotional well-being leading to poor quality of life. It is a microangiopathy affecting retinal precapillary arterioles, capillaries and venules. 2 Nearly all patients with type 1 diabetes and >60% of patients with type 2 diabetes are expected to have some form of retinopathy by the first decade of incidence of diabetes. 3 Diabetic macular edema (DME) and vitreous haemorrhage are leading cause of legal blindness in diabetic patients. Even in cases where retinopathy has not yet progressed to blindness, loss in VA is a major problem and may lead to significant reduction in functional status. DR is the third leading cause of severe visual impairment among inner-city adults ≥40 years of age. 4 Visual impairment due to diabetic retinopathy and the cost associated with its treatment hugely affect life of patients adversely. 5 Visual acuity and visual field ABSTRACT Background: Diabetes mellitus is a global public health challenge of 21 st century and diabetic retinopathy is a common complication of long standing and poorly controlled diabetes which hampers patient’s physical, social and emotional well-being leading to poor quality of life. Objective was to study the correlation between severity of diabetic retinopathy and quality of life in type II DM patients. Methods: A prospective, longitudinal and observational study was conducted in 120 patients of type II diabetes with diabetic retinopathy in a tertiary eye care centre of North India over a period from Feb. 2019 to March 2020. After doing initial ocular and systemic examination, each patient was interviewed in their local language as per NEI-VFQ- 25 questionnaire. The response was calibrated quantitatively and total QoL score was calculated. Results: Out of 120 patients of diabetic retinopathy, QoL Score was 69.8-88.8 in mild NPDR, 53.2-72.4 in moderate, 37.8-58.4 in severe NPDR and 22.4-42.2 in PDR with statistically significant difference (p<0.001). Median QoL Score was highest in mild NPDR patients and lowest in PDR, which signifies that quality of life deteriorates with severity of DR. Conclusions: Diabetic retinopathy has an adverse effect on the QoL, which increases with severity of DR. Keywords: Diabetic retinopathy, Diabetes mellitus, Quality of life Department of Ophthalmology, Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, PGIMS Rohtak, Haryana, India Received: 08 September 2020 Revised: 05 November 2020 Accepted: 12 November 2020 *Correspondence: Dr. Manisha Nada, E-mail: manisha_nada@rediffmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20205694