Assessment of health-related quality of life among Afghan refugees in Quetta, Pakistan

Copyright: © 2024 Kaleem et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited..

The study aims to assess the health-related Quality of Life (HRQOL) and its association with socio-demographic factors among the Afghan refugees residing in Quetta, Pakistan. For this purpose, a cross-sectional, descriptive study design by adopting Euro QOL five dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) for the assessment of HRQOL was conducted by approaching Afghan refugees from the camp and other areas of Quetta, Pakistan. Furthermore, this study also involved descriptive analysis to expound participant's demographic characteristics while inferential statistics (Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney test, P < 0.05) were used to compare EQ-5D scale scores. All analyses were performed using SPSS v 20. Herein, a total of 729 participants were enrolled and were subsequently (n = 246, 33.7%) categorized based on their age of 22-31 years (31.30 ± 15.40). The results of mean EQ-5D descriptive score (0.85 ± 0.20) and EQ-VAS score (78.60 ± 11.10) indicated better HRQOL in the current study respondents as compared to studies conducted in other refugee camps around the globe. In addition, demographic characteristics including age, marital status, locality, years of living as refugees, life as a refugee residing out of Pakistan, place of residence in Afghanistan, educational qualification, occupation, and arrested for crime were the statistically significant predictors (P < 0.05) of EQ-5D index scores. However, gender, living status, monthly income, preferred place of treatment were non-significant predictors (P > 0.05). The results of current study provided evidence for a model that correlated with participant's socio-demographic information and HRQOL. Moreover, this study also revealed a baseline assessment for the health status of Afghan refugees, interestingly, these results could be applied for improving HRQOL of the given participants. In conclusion, the HRQOL of Afghan refugees residing in Quetta, Pakistan can largely be improved by providing adequate healthcare facilities, education and employment opportunities, mental and social support, and providing adequate housing and basic necessities of life.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:19

Enthalten in:

PloS one - 19(2024), 2 vom: 31., Seite e0288834

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Kaleem, Shoaib [VerfasserIn]
Ahmad, Tawseef [VerfasserIn]
Wahid, Abdul [VerfasserIn]
Khan, Hamad Haider [VerfasserIn]
Mallhi, Tauqeer Hussain [VerfasserIn]
Al-Worafi, Yaser Mohammed [VerfasserIn]
Alam, Anila [VerfasserIn]
Khan, Asad [VerfasserIn]
Khan, Yusra Habib [VerfasserIn]
Khan, Faiz Ullah [VerfasserIn]

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Date Completed 05.02.2024

Date Revised 05.02.2024

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1371/journal.pone.0288834

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM367903393