Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life in Parkinson’s Disease: A Systematic Review

TL;DR

This systematic review finds that Parkinson’s Disease significantly reduces health-related quality of life due to motor and non-motor symptoms, with a need for better tools and care.

Contribution

The study systematically evaluates HRQoL in PD using recent and English-language studies, highlighting key factors and inconsistencies.

Findings

PD patients have significantly poorer HRQoL compared to healthy individuals due to motor and non-motor symptoms.

Female and younger PD patients experience more severe HRQoL impairments.

Psychiatric comorbidity data in PD remain inconsistent across studies.

Abstract

Different studies conducted on the effects of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) on the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) have presented contradictory outcomes, with the underlying domains of HRQoL requiring additional studies. Thus, the objective of this systematic review is to evaluate, by comparing and contrasting, the disease-specific HRQoL in PD. To attain the stated objective, a systematic review of various online databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and MEDLINE, was conducted. Additionally, the study employed an increasingly robust methodology based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and Cochrane guidelines. Therefore, the study's inclusion criteria required that only studies published between 2010 and 2025, as well as those published in the English language, were to be included. The quality of included studies was further assessed via an appraisal tool for cross-sectional studies. For this study, a total of 10 studies satisfied the inclusion criteria and were subsequently reviewed. The included studies disclosed that PD patients had significantly poorer HRQoL compared to healthy and non-PD persons, driven by both the motor and non-motor systems (pain, fatigue, depression), medication effects, disease progression, and cognitive/social decline, with increased severity being observed in female and younger patients. Nevertheless, the psychiatric comorbidity data remain inconsistent. Thus, in PD, HRQoL is significantly impaired by the motor and non-motor symptoms, disease progression, and psychosocial aspects that require multidisciplinary care, improved assessment tools, as well as targeted interventions to tackle the mental and physical health for better patient outcomes.

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