| This descriptive study was aimed to examine the quality of life in 308 extremity fracture patients who has been treated by casting or open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) for 1 month at the outpatient orthopedic department of Sappasitthiprasong hospital during April – June 2006. All patients were interviewed using the brief Thai version of questionnaires translated from world health organization quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF-THAI). The results demonstrated that the overall quality of life of subjects was in medium level with mean score of 3.07 (total score of 5). In addition, their quality of life in psychological domain was higher than those in
environmental, physical and social relationship domains, respectively. The highest and lowest satisfactions were about the ability to perform normal daily living activities and sex life with mean score of 3.23 and 2.82, respectively. In comparison study, the results revealed that patients with different sex, age, marriage status and number of family number had significant difference in their quality of life (p-value = 0.023, 0.005, <0.001, 0.007 respectively) and in social and economic factors, patients with different level of education, occupational and incomes had significant difference in their quality of life (p-value <0.001, <0.001, 0.007 respectively). However, the differences in health factors (site of fracture, number of fracture, treatment and duration of hospital admission) were not significantly related to an overall quality of life in these subjects (p–value > 0.05). |