Health-related Quality of Life in Patients with Injury in the Emergency Department

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to assess healthrelated quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with injury in the Emergency department, to compare that HRQOLs with normal control group, and to offer the results of this study as basic data on the HRQOL in Korean patients with injury, in the Emergency department. METHODS: Between November 1, 2003, and March 2, 2004, 266 eligible injury patients who had visited our emergency center were enrolled in the study. The HRQOL was measured by using the Korean Short Form Health Survey-36 (KSF-36)and the Korean EuroQol 5 dimensions (KEQ-5D). The HRQOL was assessed at 10 days after injury. The severity of injury was measured by using the Injury Severity Score (ISS). RESULTS: Of the 266 subjects, 164 (61.7%) were men and 102 (38.3%) were women, with a mean (+/-SD) age of 42.8 (+/-15.2) and mean ISS (+/-SD) of 4.54 (+/-3.98). The KSF- 36 and KEQ-5D scores in patients with injury were significantly lower than those in the normal control group. The HRQOL scores of each group by cause of injury had significant differences in the KSF-36 MCS and the KEQ-5D utility index, but they had no significant differences in the KSF-36 PCS. Women were more likely to have poor HRQOLs than men, but no statistical significance was found. Patients with non-intentional injury and hospitalized were more likely to have poor HRQOLs than patients with intentional injury and discharged, but the statistical significance varied with the measurement tool. CONCLUSION: In this study, we observed that the HRLOQs in patients with injury were lower than those in healthy subjects. However, if more definite feature of HRLOQ in patients with injury are to be defined, a study with a large epidemiologic controlled injury group and with detailed adjustments of the variable is needed.