Quality of life in Parkinson's disease patients with motor fluctuations and dyskinesias in five European countries.

Background: Little is known about the relationship between specific subtypes of treatment-associated motor complications and different domains of health-related Quality of Life (QoL) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Larger studies that investigate these aspects within a cross-cultural setting are scarce.

Objective: To assess QoL and its association with on-off fluctuations, peak-dose dyskinesias, biphasic dyskinesias, and off-dystonias in PD patients from five European countries.

Methods: Data from 817 PD patients were collected cross-sectionally in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. QoL was measured with the generic EuroQoL 5-Dimension questionnaire (EQ-5D) and the disease-specific Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39). Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to test the associations of motor complication subtypes with QoL.

Results: Thirty-three percent of the patients (varying from 23% in Italy to 58% in France) suffered from motor complications, either a single subtype or a combination of different subtypes. On-off fluctuations were associated with a 7.1 percentage point decrease in the EQ-5D (p < 0.001) and a 3.6 percentage point deterioration in the PDQ-39 (p = 0.01). Dyskinesias were not seen to affect global QoL scores, but had detrimental effects on the PDQ-39 dimensions activities of daily living, cognitions, stigma, and bodily discomfort. Patients from Spain, Italy, and France had lower global QoL scores in the multivariable analyses than patients from Germany and the UK.

Conclusion: Motor complications, primarily on-off fluctuations, may impact QoL in PD patients. This substantiates the importance of clinical strategies targeting the prevention, delay of onset, and management of motor complications in PD patients.