Socio-Demographic Profiles and Health-Related Quality of Life Among Adult Male Outpatients in a Nigerian Tertiary Care Centre

Background Researches indicate that men exhibit poor health-seeking behaviour despite their educational and socioeconomic status. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a useful indicator of overall health and has gained widespread acceptance as a patient-centred approach to assessing overall health status. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between HRQOL, its sociodemographic determinants, and healthcare disparities among outpatient adult males attending a primary care clinic at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Ilorin. Methods An interviewer-administered structured and semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 392 adult male patients at the general outpatient clinic of UITH. The HRQOL was assessed with the World Health Organization Quality of Life abridged version (WHOQOL-BREF). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and T-test were used to determine the mean difference between sociodemographic characteristics and mean HRQOL scores. Results Respondents thrived best in the physical domain, 65.35 ± 11.12 and fared least in the environmental domain, 50.22 ± 8.44. A statistically significant relationship was observed between all the sociodemographic variables and HRQOL domain indices (p < 0.05): respondents younger than 30, those who earned more than 30,000 naira monthly and had tertiary education fared best across all HRQOL domains. Single respondents thrived best in the physical and psychological domains, while separated/divorced respondents had the highest mean scores in the environmental domain. The retired respondents fared poorly across all domains (p < 0.05). Conclusion The study population fared best in the physical domain, and all the sociodemographic characteristics were found to be significantly associated with HRQOL domain indices.