Health-Related Quality of Life of Adult Patients Healed from Buruli Ulcer in Benin

Background: The implementation of the antimicrobial therapy greatly improved Buruli Ulcer (BU) care. Nevertheless, the disease still imposes significant burden. In rural endemic areas, many patients are being healed from the disease with disabling sequels. They are living without social assistance in a context of poverty. Various researches have evaluated the therapeutic modalities that are used to control the BU disease, but any study on the quality of life (QOL) of the patients healed from BU has been reported.
Methodology/Principal Findings: A total of 105 patients healed from Buruli ulcer and, 105 control subjects without Buruli ulcer history are enrolled in the study after giving well-informed consent. The Medical Outcome Study Short Form (SF-36) is administrated to access their QOL. The study is approved by the Ethical committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi (UAC). All the patients have a weak QOL than control subjects. The deterioration affects their physical functioning, their physical role, their emotional role and their mental health (p<0.05). However, in spite of their low QOL, subjects aged from 40 years old and over (p = 0.003), and subjects married, divorced or widowed (p = 0.01) work physically better than the other sub-groups, even if they are mentally weaker. In a Spearman correlation test, we have observed significant relationships of socio-economic variable with the decrease of SF-36 subscale values.
Conclusion/Significance: BU patients are healed in a long-term physically and psychologically marked by the sequels induced by the disease. The results of the present study suggest that interventions and supports are needed to improve the QOL of these patients.