Quality of life in post-traumatic orthopedically handicapped patients.

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The study was planned to assess quality of life (QOL) and factors affecting it in post-traumatic orthopedically handicapped patients. Materials and Methods: This is hospital-based cross-sectional study which involves 68 patients with traumatic orthopedic handicapped injury in the Department of Orthopaedeics, Rehabilitation center and Psychiatry, Government Medical College, Patiala between May 07 and Aug 08. Details of injury were taken on semistructured proforma. All patients underwent detailed psychiatric assessment using International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) and divided into two groups. Group A contains handicapped patients with psychiatric morbidity and remaining patients without psychiatric morbidity were included in Group B. Further, both groups were subjected to Quality Of Life Scale (QOLS) to assess QOL. Results: QOL was poor in handicapped patients and was affected by severity of injury. Temporal association was seen between psychiatric morbidity and QOL in handicapped patients. Conclusion: The QOL must be assessed at every stage of treatment for better adjustment of handicapped patients.