COMPARISON OF HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE IN 3 SUBGROUPS OF SPINAL-CORD INJURY PATIENTS

Health-related quality of life (HRQL) was evaluated in three subgroups of spinal cord injury (SCI) patients: (1) persons who had sustained a pediatric SCI (mean time from injury 20 years, age at injury 11.3 yea rs, n=36), (2) newly injured patients at the beginning of acute rehabi litation (mean age 35.3 years, n=31), and (3) patients with a chronic SCI (mean time from injury 4.8 years, mean age at injury 35.2 years, n = 34). All the patients were clinically examined and structurally int erviewed with a list of questions dealing with details of anamnestic i nformation about injury, its treatment, possible complications and per sons past and present psyche-social condition. HRQL was assessed by a generic fifteen-dimensional self-administered instrument (15D), The re lative importance of the 15D dimensions and an overall judgement of he alth status were measured by a 0-100 visual analogue scale. Average im portance weights of the dimensions of moving and working differed sign ificantly in the three subgroups. Patients with pediatric SCI assigned the lowest importance for moving. The newly injured patients highly v alued working capability. The HRQL scores of the patients who had sust ained their injury in childhood were significantly higher than those o f the newly injured patients or chronic patients. The tetraplegic pati ents estimated their HRQL significantly lower than patients with incom plete paraplegia. Of the three subgroups studied, those with pediatric SCI were well adjusted on the basis of anamnestic information and sco red high on HRQL when compared with the other two subgroups. Patients injured in adulthood rated their overall HRQL lower and were often una ble to return to work. Patients injured in childhood expressed better performance in physical functions than patients who had sustained thei r injury in adulthood, The subgroups did not differ in psychological f unctions.