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Abstract
Background Osteoporosis is responsible for fragility fractures, which are associated with decreased physical and social function. The GINERISK study was a cross-sectional epidemiological study conducted in 4157 Spanish postmenopausal women initially diagnosed with osteoporosis according to WHO criteria within the last 2 years.
Aim The aim of the study was to explore the impact of osteoporosis on health-related quality of life (HRQoL).
Method Menopause-specific and generic HRQoL were assessed, respectively, with the specific Cervantes Scale and the generic SF-12v2 Health Survey. The impact of osteoporosis on HRQoL was ultimately evaluated in 3328 (80.1%) women who had measurements for both bone mineral densitometry (BMD) and HRQoL.
Results Menopause-specific or generic HRQoL, respectively, were worse in women with current osteoporosis and prior osteoporotic bone fracture (BF) in comparison with current osteoporosis without BF or whose T-score had increased above −2.5 on the BMD after receiving osteoporosis drug therapy. Impaired HRQoL was found both in Spanish postmenopausal female populations and the Spanish general female population. Women with osteoporosis with BF had physical and mental summary component scores in the 20th and 30th percentiles, respectively, of the Spanish general population. Higher risk for cardiovascular death was also associated with greater HRQoL impairment. The use of selective estrogen receptor modulators in women with a BMD T-score ≤ −2.5 was associated with lower impact of osteoporosis on HRQoL, particularly in the domains of physical health and sexuality.
Conclusion The HRQoL analysis results in this study demonstrated a loss of quality of life in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and confirmed that this loss is greater in women with prior osteoporotic fracture.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank the physicians who participated in the GINERISK study and Lucia Ruiz for her assistance in preparation of illustrations for the manuscript.
Conflict of interest S. Fernández de Cabo, J. Chaves and J. Rejas are full-time employees of Pfizer, SLU. All other authors declare that they do not have any conflicts of interests. SP, JLN, SFC and JC were responsible for the design of the study. Analysis of data was carried out by JR. All authors were responsible for interpretation of data and participated in manuscript preparation.
Source of funding This study was funded by Pfizer, SLU. All authors had complete access to the data, participated in the analysis and/or interpretation of results, and drafted the manuscript. Editorial support was provided by Content Ed Net and was funded by Pfizer, SLU.