Relationship between diabetes mellitus, hypertension and obesity, and health‐related quality of life in Gaziantep, a central south‐eastern city in Turkey

Aims and objectives. The main goal of nursing care should be to increase health‐related quality of life as well as improve the medical status of patients with chronic disease. For this reason, this study aims to evaluate and compare the health‐related quality of life of patients with diabetes mellitus, hypertension and obesity in Gaziantep, a south‐eastern city in Turkey. Background. Diabetes mellitus, hypertension and obesity are the most decisive factors in terms of adversely affecting health‐related quality of life. Design. A cross‐sectional, descriptive design was used. Method. In this study, the research population included a total of 1601 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and obesity patients. To evaluate health‐related quality of life of patients, Short Form‐36 (SF‐36) was used. Student’s t‐test, one‐way anova and chi‐square analyses were used for comparisons between groups. Results. In total, 18·1% of patients had combined obesity, hypertension and diabetes mellitus; 16·1% had hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Approximately 16·1% had only hypertension; 15·4% had obesity and hypertension; 13·3% had diabetes mellitus; 12·7% had obesity and diabetes mellitus; and 8·4% had obesity. The health‐related quality of life physical component mean scores of patients with combined obesity and hypertension were lower than that of the other groups (p