Abstract

Lumbar stenosis (LS) affected middle-aged people and may cause severe symptoms and functional impairment at lower limbs. We conducted a study in China to assess the HRQoL in patients operated on for LS, and investigate the possible determinants of HRQoL. From June 2008 to June 2010, 60 patients have been surgically treated for lunbar stenosis in our Hospital. The medical outcomes study short Form 36 (SF-36) was used to measure the quality of life before and after surgery. With regard to the results of the general quality of life tool (SF-36), we observed a significant improvement of HRQoL, JOY score and improvement rate of LS patients after surgery for 3 months (p<0.05). Logistic regression showed that female patients had lower mental component summary (MCS) scores (OR=0.6, 95% CI=0.4-0.9). Patients older than 45 years had lower scores in the physical component summary (PCS) (OR=0.5, 95% CI=0.3-0.8). Patients with higher JOY score (>11) was related to both lower MCS and PCS scores (For MCS, OR=1.8, 95% CI=1.1-2.3; for PCS, OR=1.7, 95% CI=1.1-2.2). A significant dose-respondence relationship was found between the JOY score and HRQoL. In conclusion, our study showed the surgery for lumbar stenosis could greatly improve the HRQoL of patients. Age, sex and JOY score were associated with physical or mental HRQoL after surgery for LS.

Key words: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL), surgical treatment, lumbar stenosis, outcome assessment, JOY score.