Burden of care and quality of life (QOL) in opioid and alcohol abusing subjects.

Background: Alcohol misuse is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and an important health care burden, the Quality of Life (QoL) of alcohol abusing subjects has been little studied to date. Aims & Objective: To assess the burden of care and quality of life of alcohol and opioid dependent subjects. Material and Methods: A cross sectional hospital based study was done. The sample consisted of 37 patients of mixed sex and their family members. The subjects were examined using a semi structured socio demographic profile performa, the WHOQOL-BREF quality of life assessment, Family Burden Interview Schedule (FBIS). Results: The overall mean scores for WHOQOL-Bref were not statistically significant between the alcohol (p=0.93) and the opioid (p=0.99) dependent groups and also the individual domains showed no significant difference between groups. Conclusion: Our study was conducted to analyse the quality of life and burden of care in alcohol and opioid dependent patients. The report of many subjects of poor quality of life during early withdrawal periods stresses the need for implementing ways of improving quality of life during this stage, to reduce relapse, and have better compliance of the detoxification and management measures. Our study also shows that the quality of life of alcohol users is equally poor when compared to that of opioid dependent subjects.