Quality of life and clinical characteristics in a nonselected sample of patients with schizophrenia

Background: Patients with schizophrenia experience low quality of life (QOL). Aims: To examine QOL in these patients and the relation between QOL and illness duration, adjusted daily doses (ADDs) of antipsychotics, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and smoking. Methods: In this naturalistic, cross-sectional study, 82 patients were interviewed about smoking habits. Patients completed a QOL questionnaire (World Health Organization Quality of Life-Bref) consisting of physical, psychological, social and environmental domains and had height, weight and waist circumference measured. The characteristics and QOL were correlated using multiple regression analysis. Results: QOL was significantly lower in the patients than in the general population (p