Background Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) evaluation is becoming increasingly recognised as an important outcome measure in the care of mental illness patients. Evidence shows that chronically-ill patients have a lower quality of life and lower adherence to their drug treatment. A limited number of studies has investigated the relationship between HRQoL, adherence to antidepressant and severity of depression.

Purpose To assess the effect of severity of depression on adherence to medicines and on the HRQoL.

Material and methods A questionnaire-based, cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out between August 2013 and January 2014 in an outpatient clinic at a psychiatric hospital. All patients meeting the inclusion criteria were invited sequentially to participate. Written consent was sought from the patients, eligible participants met one of the research coordinators to assess adherence to medicines by using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, severity of symptoms was measured by the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale and health-related quality of life was measured by the EuroQol-5 dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D).

Results A total of 187 patients participated in this study. 53.5% were females. Mean EQ-5D descriptive score was 0.67 SD 0.35 for males and 0.63 SD 0.38 for females. A total of 54 different EQ-5D health states were described by the patients. The data showed no effect of age, education level, duration of illness and number of antidepressants on the EQ-5D score. Using Pearson’s correlation coefficient to examine the relationship between EQ-5D and EQ-VAS scores and the topics of this study, resulted in a positive association between adherence and both EQ-5D (0.2899) and EQ-VAS (0.2116) with significant correlation at the 0.01 level. There was at the same time a negative association between EQ-5D and EuroQol-visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS) scores and severity of depression (0.6962);(0.4869) respectively with significant correlation at the 0.01 level.

Conclusion Association between severity of depression and HRQL reflects the importance of evaluating the severity of the depression and its impact on HRQL and adherence. An appreciation of the severity and appropriate management enable healthcare providers to control depression better.

References and/or Acknowledgements No conflict of interest.