Impact of rehabilitation on health related quality of life in patients with hip osteoarthritis

Abstract

© 2017, University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science. All rights reserved. Hip osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative, progressive musculoskeletal system disease in adult individuals. Both genders demonstrate a similar prevalence at 11.5% for men and 11.6% for women. During the initial stage of hip OA, conservative treatments may signifi cantly decrease pain, provide functional improvement and enhance health related quality of life (HRQoL). Th e aims of the study were to evaluate the quality of life of patients with hip osteoarthritis and to estimate the impact of a comprehensive rehabilitation intervention on their HRQoL. Th is was a prospective, observational study of 50 consecutive patients with hip osteoarthritis who were referred to an outpatient rehabilitation intervention. To assess their HRQoL before and after rehabilitation, we used the SF-36 and the Lequesne index for hip OA. Th e mean age was 61.7±8.3 years, and 56% of the patients were women. After rehabilitation, the SF-36 RE and RP subscales and the Lequesne pain subscale showed the most signifi cant improvement, although all of the SF-36 and Leq uesne domains showed signifi cant improvement. Before rehabilitation, the Lequesne ADL subscale was most correlated with the SF-36 PF subscale (rho=−0.908). After rehabilitation, the total Lequesne score was highly correlated with the SF-36 PF subscale (rho=−0.895). Age, education and the duration of disease were signifi cantly correlated with all of the Lequesne subscales before and after rehabilitation. Th is study showed that patients with hip osteoarthritis had a substantially low HRQoL, but all health dimensions showed statistically significant improvements after outpatient rehabilitation intervention.