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Background and Aim: Perennial allergic rhinitis impairs social life, but it is not known whether quality of life may be improved when patients are treated with an H1-blocker. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was carried out with cetirizine to assess the effect of this drug on quality of life., Methods: Two hundred seventy-four patients with perennial allergic rhinitis were tested. Quality of life was measured by using the Medical Outcome Study Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire. After a 2-week run-in period, cetirizine, 10 mg once daily, (136 patients) or placebo (138 patients) was given for the next 6 weeks. The SF-36 questionnaire was administered after the run-in period (at the start of treatment) and after 1 and 6 weeks of treatment. Symptom-medication scores were measured daily during the study., Results: After the run-in period (baseline), there were no significant differences between the cetirizine and placebo groups in terms of symptoms or quality-of-life scores. After 6 weeks of treatment, percentage of days without rhinitis or with only mild rhinitis symptoms was significantly greater in the cetirizine group in comparison with the placebo group (p < 0.0001, Mann-Whitney U test). All of the nine quality-of-life dimensions were significantly improved (from p = 0.01 to p < 0.0001, Mann-Whitney U test) after 1 and 6 weeks of cetirizine treatment compared with placebo. There was no improvement in the placebo group., Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate that an H1-blocker, cetirizine, can improve quality of life for patients with perennial allergic rhinitis.

Background and Aim: Perennial allergic rhinitis may impair social life. General scales of quality of life (QOL) are used to detect the importance of social life impairment, but the reliability and validity of QOL measures should be tested in patients with perennial allergic rhinitis. The extent to which QOL scores differ in patients with rhinitis and healthy subjects is unknown., Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 111 patients with moderate to severe perennial allergic rhinitis and 116 healthy subjects to assess the validity of a general QOL scale, the SF-36 Health Status Questionnaire. This scale is based on 36 items selected to represent nine health concepts (dimensions). The internal reliability of each dimension of the questionnaire was examined. The differences in QOL scores between patients with rhinitis and healthy subjects were studied., Results: Most QOL scores were highly reliable. There was a significant impairment in eight of nine QOL dimensions in patients with perennial allergic rhinitis in comparison with healthy subjects., Conclusions: The SF-36 Health Status Questionnaire allows discrimination between patients with perennial allergic rhinitis and healthy subjects.

The reasons for 50 requests for reversal of tubal sterilisation were studied prospectively. Our results agree with those in the rest of the literature and show that within a population of women who have been sterilised there is a group who have "a strong likelihood to ask for reversal of sterilisation". These results make one think of the role of the doctor and can help by using scores that have been worked out previously to improve the indications for sterilisation in case legislation will be forthcoming.