The Impact of Body Mass Index on Quality of Life in Women with Osteoporosis

Improving the quality of life in osteoporotic women is one of the crucial goals of health systems. Hence, recognizing the factors affecting the quality of life in such patients is an important issue. The body mass index (BMI) seems to be capable of affecting quality of life. Besides, BMI is a quantitative index simple to measure.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of BMI on quality of life in a group of osteoporotic women.

One hundred osteoporotic women aged 50 - 60 participated in this descriptive-analytical study. These women were referring to the internal clinic of Mousavi Hospital of Zanjan. The body mass index was calculated after measuring both height and weight. Based on the BMI, the patients were divided into three groups: BMI < 18.5 underweight, 18.5 ≤ BMI < 25 normal and BMI ≥ 25 overweight. The short form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire was employed for measuring the quality of life. Given the normal distribution of data, one-way-ANOVA and Independent t-test were utilized to compare the means of the three groups. In all tests, P < 0.05 was accepted as a significant level.

Comparison groups using the one-way ANOVA test on SF-36 subscale and total QOL scores showed in all components of QOL; underweight, overweight and normal groups were significantly different (P < 0.05). Considering the Independent t-test, osteoporotic women in overweight group reported a poor quality of life as measured by the SF-36. Yet, the quality of life score in the normal group and the underweight group did not have a significant difference.

The results of this study demonstrated that increased BMI negatively affects quality of life. Therefore, it can be avowed that keeping the BMI low and controlling it are effective in raising the quality of life in osteoporotic women. Thus, so as to improve the quality of life in those patients, therapists ought to take greater heed of their BMI and its changes.