Objective: To compare the quality of life of the group participants in ‘Sing to Beat Parkinson’s® (STBP) Projects in China, S. Korea and Australia.

Background: In the face of rising health care costs, the implications of Parkinson’s, a chronic disease, are often not fully realised in countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Sing to Beat Parkinson’s® (STBP) program can improve quality of life for people with Parkinson’s (PWP) and bring significant health benefits in countries that will face with growing number of ageing population and the associated burden on society.

Methods: The data came from the PWP in 3 countries participated in the STBP program for six months. The quality of life of all participants were measured with the Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ39, including 8 dimensions (mobility, stigma, communication, bodily discomfort, activities of daily life, emotions, social support, and cognition) in addition to basic demographic (age, gender) information. ). The baseline data was analysed using SPSS Version 18.0. Pearson correlation was conducted on all cases to analyse the PDQ summary, as well as age groups(≤60, 61-70, >70), gender, between the three countries and also the time since diagnosis.

Results: 104 participants (43 male; 61 female) joined the STBP groups, 73 from Australia, 17 from S. Korea and 14 from China. A chi-squared test revealed that there is no significant difference in gender structure (χ^2=5.431,P=0.066) ,but significantly different in age distribution (χ^2=23.068,P＜0.001) between the three countries. ANOVA test indicated that there is a significant difference in the dimension of communication (F=3.330, P=0.040), PWP from Australia took the highest score in communication dimension rather than the participants in the other countries. However, no significant difference (F=0.532,P=0.589) in the summary of PDQ39. In term of age group, no significant difference was showed in all dimensions and the summary of PDQ39 neither within a country non between three countries. IPearson correlation test demonstrated that there is a weak relation between the time since diagnosis and the summary of PDQ39 (r=0.208,P=0.045).

Conclusions: The quality of life of the participants in ‘Sing to Beat Parkinson’s® (STBP) Projects in China, S. Korea and Australia is relatively close, but different in the dimension of communication. It decreases with the time since diagnosis. The disadvantages of the research are small sample size and volunteer bias.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-quality-of-life-of-the-participants-in-a-group-singing-intervention-for-people-with-parkinsons-a-comparison-across-china-beijing-south-korea-seoul-and-australia-brisbane/