Background: Severe mental illness is strongly associated with an impaired quality of life. This intern can affect the treatment adherence and outcomes of the illness. However, due attention was not given this alarming issue Therefore; assessment of quality of life of patients with severe mental illness and its correlates is a yardstick measure for the effectiveness of the mental health service.
Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted from May 1 to 16, 2018 at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital. A systematic random sampling technique was used to get a total number of 394 samples. Data were collected using interview-administered questionnaires. World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief Version, The collected data were coded, entered into EpiDATA version 3.1 and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Simple and multiple linear regression analysis were used to assess the contributing factors of quality of life in the participants and B coefficient with 95% CI confidence interval was used. The statistical significance was accepted at p-value < 0.05.
RESULT: Mean quality of life score of patients with severe mental illness for each domain (mean± SD) was 41.3±7.5, 42.8±8.2, 38.9±8.9, and 41.8±6.5 for physical, psychological, social and environmental, respectively. Multiple regression analysis showed the age of participants was strongly positively correlated with all domains of quality of life. It predicts above 45% of the variability in each domain. Social support is also another strong predictor which was negatively correlated with all domains of quality of life, except physical.
Conclusion: The study revealed that the mean score quality of life of patients with severe mental illness in each domain was low. This demonstrates a need for improving quality of among people with severe mental illness. Moreover, prevention and early intervention of co-morbid medical conditions is also recommended too.