The asthma duration.

BackgroundAsthma usually arises from an interaction between host and environmental factors. Growing attention has been paid to a place of residence as a factor shaping health-related quality of life (QoL). This study investigated the rural-urban disparity in QoL among adult asthma patients in the Amur region of Russian Federation.Materials and methodsThis cross-sectional study included 351 randomly selected adults with asthma. We analyzed QoL (SF-36 and AQLQ scores), asthma control (ACT), and anxiety and depression (HADS) depending on the place of residence (urban vs. rural).ResultsThe scale “Role Emotional” (RE) of SF-36 was significantly lower in patients from rural areas compared to urban residents (59.3±3.1 vs. 70.4±2.3 points; p = 0.0042). In the urban group, the correlation analysis demonstrated a clear influence of RE on patients’ own assessment of their physical functioning (PF, r = 0.53; p2-agonists in rural areas compared to urban areas (4.2±0.6 vs. 2.7±0.3 inh/day, respectively; p = 0.0221). The frequency of urban residents with a clinically significant level of anxiety (56 persons, or 25.2%) turned out to be lower compared to rural residents (45 persons, or 34.8%; χ2 = 34.08; pConclusionThe burden of asthma introduces a greater imbalance in the health-related QoL of rural residents compared to urban residents in the Amur region of the Russian Federation. The absence of interrelationships of some QoL domains in rural residents suggested a disunity of the physical, psychological and social aspects of life. The rural residents suppress physical discomfort by the more frequent use of short bronchodilators. They often showed emotional instability with a predominance of anxiety, which affected the decrease in QoL in the psycho-emotional sphere.