ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1685750
This article is part of the Research Topic15 Years of Frontiers in Psychiatry – Wellbeing and SocietyView all articles
Impact of Mental Disorders on Health-Related Quality of Life: A Propensity Score Matched Comparison
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Social Welfare, The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, Republic of Korea
- 2Department of Public Health, Mokwon University, Seo District, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
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Background: Despite the importance of the health-related quality of life(HRQoL) in mental health, research into HRQoL among people with mental disorders remains limited in Korea. Aims: To quantify the impact of mental disorders on HRQoL in the Korean context. Methods: Propensity score matching was used to establish a case-control database. A total of 177 people with mental disorders (38.4% with schizophrenia, 21.5% with bipolar affective disorder, 20.3% with recurrent depressive disorder and 19.8% with other mental conditions) were surveyed and matched with an equal number of individuals without mental disorders from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. HRQoL was measured using the EuroQol-5 Dimension (EQ-5D) scale. Multivariate beta regression analysis was performed to assess the impact of mental disorders on HRQoL. Results: Individuals with mental disorders had significantly lower EQ-5D index scores (0.854, SD 0.144) than those without mental disorders (0.972, SD 0.067) (p<0.0001). According to the results of the multivariate beta regression analysis, having a mental disorder was found to significantly worsen HRQoL by 71.2%(exp(-1.244)=0.288, p<0.0001). Additionally, self-rated health was found to significantly improve HRQoL in people with mental disorders. Rating one’s health as ‘good’ was associated with a 95.1% (β=0.668, p=0.0029) increase in EQ-5D score compared to rating it as ‘poor’. Conclusion: The presence of mental disorders was significantly associated with lower HRQoL. Further in-depth studies are needed to explore HRQoL among individuals with mental disorders from a variety of perspectives, particularly within the Korean context.
Keywords: mental disorder, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, health-related quality of life, Propensity score matching
Received: 14 Aug 2025; Accepted: 22 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ko, Lee and Kwon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hye-Young Kwon, haeyoungkwon0111@gmail.com
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