Abstract:
The quality of life, as an integral indicator of physical, emotional and
social well-being, decreases in patients with viral (HCV) liver damage already in
the early stages of the disease. The most acceptable questionnaire for assessing
the quality of life (QoL) in patients with viral (HCV) liver cirrhosis (LC) is the SF-
36 questionnaire. According to a meta-analysis of 15 studies, in patients with
chronic hepatitis C using the SF-36 questionnaire, there was a decrease in QoL
compared with a healthy control group: the integral mental health component by
12.8; integral physical component of health — by 6.6 [1]. Researchers report
conflicting data on the factors affecting QoL in patients with LC in the outcome
of viral hepatitis C. Thus, it was found that the determining parameters of QoL
are the stage of LC, age, female sex, low socioeconomic status, and marital
status [2–5]. Other studies emphasize that only the stage of cirrhosis was a
significant factor that reduces QoL [6]. At the same time, there are not enough
studies devoted to the study of the influence of individual LC syndromes and, in
particular, hepatic encephalopathy (HE) on the quality of life of patients in this
category.
