A Study of the Health-related Quality of Life in Injured Patients Three Years after ICU Hospitalization

Introduction: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) considerably decreases after injured. This study aimed to assess and compare the quality of life during a three years’ period after injury and hospital stay among the injured patients admitted in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for 24 hours at least with non-ICU injured patients as the control group. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 204 injured patients treated by the injured team of Shahid Rajaee Injured Center of Shiraz, Iran, were evaluated from January 2019 to December 2020. HRQOL was measured using the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36). Patients were called and asked to answer the SF-36 questionnaire according to the current condition. SPSS was used to analyze the data. Results: The mean age of the ICU and non-ICU patients was 34.34 and 37.68 years, respectively. The majority of patients in both ICU and non-ICU groups were male (83.5%, 88.1%) and under 60 years of age (91.3%, 92.1%). The injury severity score (ISS) was marked as critical in 66.99% of ICU patients. The mean SF-36 scores in ICU patients were lower than the similar indices in non-ICU patients in all dimensions (P<0.001) Except for social functioning, a non-significant difference was observed between the ICU and non-ICU patients for only two subscales. Conclusion: Health-related quality of life among the patients with sustained severe injuries who were admitted to ICU decreased considerably after three years follow up. Given that certain factors can help identify patients in need of sufficient pain management, adequate information can help injury specialist teams for follow-ups.