How Sociodemographic Characteristics May Affect the Thermal User's Perception of Illness, Quality of Life, Sleep Quality and Disability. A Portuguese Case Study
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Literature shows that thermal spas’ users seek thermal spas for therapeutic
and wellness reasons. If the effective improvement in the user’s health status needs to
be confirmed by clinical tests, the perceived improvement in the user’s quality of life
may be assessed using different validated quality of life scales like the EQ-5D-5L or
the EUROHIS-QOL-8. Moreover, it is possible to use validated scales like BaSIQS
to determine sleep quality, the HAQ-DI to evaluate the user’s disability awareness,
and the B-IPB to assess illness perception. All these scales were applied to a sample
of users of the thermal treatments in Termas de Chaves, the second-biggest thermal
spa in Portugal, before and after 14 days of treatment, allowing to gather an important
set of statistical data to assess the evolution of the user’s perception illness, quality
of life, sleep quality and disability. Therefore, this research aims to understand if
the sociodemographic characteristics of thermal users influence the results obtained.
Therefore, a binomial logistic regression is applied to identify the user’s features that
affect the differences in the user’s perception before and after treatments. The results
show that, in general, after treatments, the users’ perception is positive. However,
only some characteristics of the users are statistically significant to explain such
users’ perceptions.
