The purpose of the present study was to assess quality of life (QOL) in n-AMD patients seen in a Malaysian public hospital
and to further identify visual and demographic factors that may contribute to QOL scores of these patients. Patients
with any form of n-AMD in at least one eye were recruited from hospital’s ophthalmology department. Bahasa Malaysia
version of National Eye Institute Visual function questionnaire-25 (NEI-VFQ-25) was administered to all participants.
Demographics, visual functions (VF) including best corrected distance visual acuity (BCDVA), contrast sensitivity (CS),
near visual acuity (NVA) and reading speed (RS) were recorded. Eighty-six patients (Malay=26, Indian=23, Chinese=37)
aged 52 to 85 years, diagnosed with n-AMD were chosen to participate. Their mean NEI-VFQ composite score (NEI-VFQ
CS) was 66.91 ± 13.07. However, no significant difference in NEI-VFQ CS between gender, races and between the two sub
groups of n-AMD were observed (p>0.05). NEI-VFQ CS showed a significant association with RS (correlation coefficient
(ρ) =0.627), NVA (ρ = -.660), BCDVA (ρ = -.586), CS (ρ =.0.515). A linear model showed that a combination of BCDVA,
NVA, CS is accounted for a significant 38 % variability of NEI-VFQ CS (R2
=0.382, p<0.001). In conclusion, the QOL of
Malaysian n-AMD patients were found to be low. Thus, the study results indicated the need of developing necessary
management strategies to address this QOL issues in n-AMD patients in Malaysia. Furthermore, the present study suggested
incorporating appropriate VF such as near acuity, contrast sensitivity, reading speed in clinical settings while assessing
n-AMD patients as these VF explain the patient’s perception about the impact of this disease.
Literature data on association between physical activity (PA) and health related quality of life (HRQoL) in non-clinical
adults population are still limited. Thereby, the objective of this study was to evaluate the association between PA and
HRQoL among the non-academic staff serving the Faculty of Health Sciences (FSK), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM),
Kuala Lumpur (KL). In this cross sectional study, 105 non-academic staffs aged between 18 to 60 years were recruited.
Self-administered questionnaires (Malay version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and World Health
Organisation Quality of Life-Brief Version) were administered among the participants. Mann Whitney test and Spearman’s
rho correlation were employed for the statistical analysis using SPSS version 22.0 Majority of participants (72.4%)
demonstrated high PA scores of ≥ 3000 MET-minutes/week. PA scores between genders was not statistically significant
(p = 0.137). However, total PA score of support staffs (median = 9039.0, IQR = 15811.00) was significantly higher compared
to staffs in management and professional group (median = 4329.0, IQR = 4189.00). The mean(SD) self-perceived HRQoL
score was 3.4 (0.76). There were no significant correlation between PA and all domains of HRQoL such as physical health,
psychological, social relationship and environmental domains (Correlation coefficient, ρ = -0.108, 0.003, -0.023, 0.026
respectively) with p = 0.273, 0.978, 0.818, 0.794 respectively. Majority of non-academic staffs of FSK, UKM engaged in
high physical activity. The PA levels of support staffs were significantly higher than management and professional staffs.
However, there was no statistically significant correlation observed between PA and domains of HRQoL.