**4. Results**

chronic diseases [78–89]. Diabetes mellitus, HIV, tuberculosis, hypertensive, cancer, schizophrenia, and dementia are some of these chronic diseases that involve people of all races and to some extent all ages. They are considered common chronic diseases in most countries, and their prevalence has continued to increase. Several studies have shown that chronic illnesses often impair or have negative impacts on the quality of life and subjective well-being of persons across a whole range of areas

Tuberculosis, HIV, and cancer diseases weaken patients' physical functioning and impair their quality of life and hence may affect life expectancy [82–85]. It has become important that TB and HIV control programs as well as cancer awareness and prevention programs at public health clinics design strategies to improve the quality of health and life of these patients. In patients with chronic diseases, all predicted domains of quality of life (QOL), including general health perceptions, somatic sensation, psychological health, spiritual well-being, and physical, social, and role functioning, all tend to be negatively affected [86–93]. Social stigmatization, isolation, pill burden, long duration of therapy, sexual dysfunction, loss of income, and fear were additional specific problems related to chronic medical conditions [80, 82–88]. Despite available curative therapy, TB and its treatment still have significant short- and long-term consequences on patients' QOL

[82, 83, 86–93]. QOL has also been characterized as "the ultimate goal of all health

The aim of this study, therefore, was to determine the impact of chronic medical and neuropsychiatric disorders (HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, schizophrenia, and dementia) on life expectancy and the role of quality of life and

Following ethical approval and informed consent from the participants, 20 subjects from each group of HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, schizophrenia, and dementia were recruited based on the study's inclusion and exclusion criteria. The study group comprised patients already diagnosed by the consultant physicians at their respective specialty clinics at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital and on treatment and have been regular on follow-up at their respective outpatient clinics. Participants were recruited through a simple random sampling. Those recruited were within 30–40 years of age, whose illness duration was within 3–5 years. Thirty-five normal individuals (five for each medical condition) were selected also via simple random sampling from among staff of the

Both subjects and controls were administered the study's instruments including the sociodemographic/clinical questionnaire, WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WHO CIDI), and the WHOQOL-Bref. The data were analyzed using the SPSS version 20 statistical package. The cohorts and control were followed up for clinic attendance, dropout, quality of life, death, and survival rates after 5 years. Confidence interval was set at 95%, while P-value of less than 0.05 was

[80, 82–89].

*Aging - Life Span and Life Expectancy*

interventions" [81].

**2. Aim**

well-being.

**66**

**3. Methodology**

hospital, matched for age and sex, as controls.

considered statistically significant (**Tables 1** and **2**).


#### **Table 1.**

*Sociodemographic variables of patients with diabetes, hypertension, HIV, tuberculosis, cancer schizophrenia, and dementia.*

 **2.**

*hypertension,*

 *HIV, tuberculosis,*

*schizophrenia,*

 *cancer, and dementia.*

**5. Discussion**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90756*

30

the schizophrenic group.

[4, 13, 42, 48

were in the 40

males [103, 104].

**69**

in younger ages [12

but could present as presenile [98

uted to the low mortality rate in this study.

separation due to fear of transmission.

sampled in this study were within the age group of 40

Young adults from 35 years and above predominated the study group. Similarly, younger age adults were more prevalent among the HIV, tuberculosis, and schizophrenia groups than the group with hypertension and cancer. The dementia group was composed of entirely younger age adults. Infectious diseases both sexually and nonsexually infections were predominantly represented by patients in early adulthood [4, 7]. Similarly, tuberculosis is an infective disease, and exposure to it may be more in adults who work in healthcare facilities and are mostly caregivers close to already infected persons [7–9]. Tuberculosis is also common in individuals whose immunity may have waned due to poor nutrition, alcohol use, stress, and other emotional illnesses, in most times occasioned by the medical illness, as well as other infective diseases [7–9]. HIV had the most of youngest population with age group

*Impact of Chronic Medical and Neuropsychiatric Illnesses on Quality of Life and Life*

–39 years forming 60%. This is in line with the earlier finding that HIV is more prevalent among young persons [24, 27]. Similarly, most cases of schizophrenia usually begin in early adulthood except paraphrenia that occurs among the elderly [21]. Hebephrenia, characteristically, one of the most early-onset and worst prognoses was excluded the same way as those with AIDS-defined illness that were excluded among the HIV group. Paranoid schizophrenia was the most common of

Apart from the influence of genetic predisposition, diabetic mellitus and hypertension are largely a disease of lifestyle including unhealthy eating habits, alcohol intake, and sedentary lifestyle, which would be mostly displayed among adults

–49 age group. Cancers can occur in any age group [93

in this study ranged from lung, prostate, breast, cervical, blood, and bone cancers to cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. Dementia is generally a disease of advanced age

presenile. Patients with vascular dementia were excluded to reduce the influence of high blood pressure on this group. Overall, all the chronic illnesses in this study span from young to older ages. Therefore the choice of a fairly mid-age as inclusion criteria for respondents was to reduce the impact of extremes of age on the study variable particularly quality of life and life span. However, this may have contrib-

In the study, female gender was slightly higher among all subjects with 56%. Females generally have better healthcare-seeking behavior and tend to have lower mortality rate at all ages [103]. So, even though hypertension has higher prevalence in community studies [6, 13, 17], most hospital-based studies show slightly higher prevalence in females. This is in addition to biological and cultural vulnerability of HIV infection [104]. Cancer was slightly higher among females, and this could also be due to the same reason that females report symptoms more readily than do

The majority of the respondents were married. However, illnesses that have predominantly onset in early adulthood like schizophrenia or common among young adult like HIV had a high percentage of single people [21, 24, 27]. In addition to being predominant among young people, HIV and schizophrenia are associated with a high level of stigma [1, 77, 105], although stigma in the former seems to have reduced significantly over the years. Persons affected with schizophrenia particular early-onset type tend to have difficulty forming or sustaining relationship or even get married, and even those who are already married may face a high risk of

–50]. Hypertension is typically a disease of older adults but can occur

–14]. In this study, the majority of patients with hypertension

–102]. Even though all dementia participants

–49, a majority were

–97], and those

*…*

**Table**

*Quality of life using the* 

*WHOQOL-Bref*

 *of subjects and controls with diabetes mellitus,* 

*Aging - Life Span and Life Expectancy*

*Impact of Chronic Medical and Neuropsychiatric Illnesses on Quality of Life and Life… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90756*
