Quality of life in a Brazilian sample of patients with Parkinson's disease and their caregivers.

Objective: Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor disabilities and increasing dependence on others for daily life activities with consequent impact on patients' and caregivers' quality of life.

Method: A cross-sectional study was performed in which quality of life was assessed by the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire in 21 patients with Parkinson's disease and their respective caregivers.

Results: Significant differences between patients and caregivers were found in physical (p < 0.001) and psychological (p = 0.002) domains. In the Parkinson's disease group there was a significant inverse correlation between the psychological domain and duration of disease (p = 0.01), as well as between social domain and severity of disease (p = 0.001). There was a positive correlation between physical domain scores and number of people living in the same house (p = 0.02). The only significant finding in the group of caregivers was an inverse correlation between the social domain and the patients' age (p = 0.04).

Conclusion: Duration, severity of the disease and the number of people living in the same house were the most important predictors of quality of life of Parkinson's disease patients. The age of the patients was the only significant predictor found in the caregivers' quality of life. In order to complement our findings, further short-form questionnaires should be validated for Brazilian samples of Parkinson's disease.