Quality of life of people using lower limb prosthesis after returning to the community

Abstract

Abstract

The study identifies the quality of life of people using lower limb prosthesis. It also finds out the demographic factors (age, sex, income, diagnosis) contributing Physical and Psychological level of satisfaction among the participants. The study was conducted through descriptive study design among 30 participants who were selected by purposive sampling technique by a structured questionnaire with face to face interview. There are many general instruments available to measure quality of life. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a quality of life instrument, the WHOQOL, which captures many subjective aspects of quality of life. It has been adopted in the United State of America, Netherlands, Poland, Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Australia, Japan, Croatia, Zimbabwe and many other countries. WHOQOLBREF and Demographic questionnaire was analysed and discussed about the demographic factors such as age, gender, occupation marital status etc. WHOQOLBREF questionnaire was also discussed about Physical and Psychological level of satisfaction of quality of life. In WHOQOL- BREF, there are 26 questions. The scale grade has distributed into 1-5 (Very poor- very good) with overall quality of life and level of mental satisfaction. In case of overall quality of life of the persons using lower limb prosthesis about 37.7% of the participants had poor quality of life, about 56.7% of the participants had neither poor nor good quality of life and only 6.7% had good quality of life. However, no one led a very good quality of life. There was a significant reminder about type of disabilities, diagnosis and current occupation. In this study, among all participants, 70% felt negative feelings such as blue mood, despair, anxiety, depression very often. On the other hand 6.7% of the participants felt negative feelings such as blue mood, despair, anxiety, depression always while 23.3% of the participants felt the negative feelings quite often. In association between the type of prosthesis and quality of life indicates that most of the participants lead neither good nor poor quality of life with lower limb prosthesis. This research shows a statistical overview of using lower limb prosthesis following lower limb amputation. But in the end these statistical results are not appropriate and powerful way to know the persons’ quality of life not being in their positions.

Key words: Quality of life, amputation, prosthesis, lower limb prosthesis.