Investigation and analysis of the quality of life on brachial plexus injury patients / 中华显微外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the quality of life on brachial plexus injury patients in crosssectional study method and acquire related data. To analysis the effect factors and try to study on the methods which help to improve the quality of life of these patients. To our knowledge, this is the first study that measures quality of life of the brachial plexus injury patients in China. Methods Research participants completed the Chinese version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-Bref (WHOQOL-BREF) and the 5-items version of International Index of Erectile Dysfunction Questionnaire (IIEF-5) for male.Data were typed into computer and analyzed with SPSS version 13.0. Correlations between domain scores and hospital stay, age, and family monthly income variables were analyzed with Spearman non-parameter correlation analysis. Results Fifty-one valid questionnaires were retrieved. The average score of these patients in physical, psychological, environment domains were 11.47 ± 2.36, 12.37 ± 2.28 and 11.62 ± 2.22, respectively. They were significantly lower than the norm groups in national studies which were 15.8 ± 2.9, 14.3 ±2.5 and 13.2 ± 2.4 (P ＜ 0.01 ). The average score of IIEF-5 was ( 17.83 ± 4.65), significantly lower than the normal score of 22 (P ＜ 0.01 ). Significant correlation was found among physical domain and age(P ＜ 0.05),family monthly income (P ＜ 0.05) and IIEF-5 score(P ＜ 0.01). Psychological domain also has significant correlation with IIEF-5 score (P ＜ 0.05) and so does environment domain with family monthly income (P ＜0.05). Conclusion Brachial plexus injury patients showed a reduction in quality of life scores. Even though the physical aspect was the most affected, there is evidence that the psychological, environmental domains and erectile function remained far from the ideal conditions expected for the general population. The effect factors are complex and there still remain much work to do.