(P-201) Comparison of Quality of Life Between Men and Women with Chronic Liver Diseases Using Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ): A Meta-analysis

Background: Chronic liver diseases (CLD) have a high prevalence in adults globally. They affect the quality of life (QoL) of the patients. The chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ) is an instrument consisted of 6 domains developed in 1999 to measure the quality of life in CLD patients. The difference in QoL between men and women in CLD is not established yet.

Objectives: To compare the QoL between males and females in CLD using the chronic liver disease questionnaire.

Methods: We searched PubMed, Google Scholar, and Embase through October 2020 for studies that compared the QoL in CLD between males and females using the CLDQ. A random-effects model was performed in this meta-analysis to estimate the average mean difference of the studies. Effect sizes were reported as the variance of the mean difference and the mean difference values. Sensitivity analysis was performed to detect any study that has a high impact on our overall results. We used the PRISMA checklist to report our results.

Results: We analyzed data from 8 studies with 6,846 total number of patients. Women had worse QoL than men in 5 domains of the CLDQ. These domains were abdominal symptoms (CI = [0.1398 , 0.7483], I2 = 67.65%), systemic symptoms (CI = [0.2234 , 0.5726], I2 = 68.56%), activity (CI = [0.1645 , 0.6506], I2 = 78.09%), emotional functioning (CI = [0.1070 , 0.5497], I2 = 78.38%), and worry (CI = [0.0416 , 0.4651], I2 =74.50%). There was no significant difference in the fatigue measurement between males and females (CI = [-0.05, 1.04], I2 = 67.65%). The overall CLDQ score showed a significant difference between the two groups (CI = [0.1405, 0.4938], I2 = 74.01%).

Conclusions: Based on the CLDQ, we found that women have a significant worse QoL than men in CLD. Our study gives insight to health care providers about the impact of CLD on the QoL, particularly in female patients.