Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients with Spinal Cord Injury in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

 Subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI) may experience a low quality of life due to struggling with sensory and motor impairments and various underlying illnesses.

The present study was conducted to investigate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of Iranian patients with SCI.

In the present study, a search was done in domestic and international databases including MagIran, Iran Medex, SID, Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus using specific keywords (“Quality of Life” OR “Health-Related Quality of Life” OR “Life Style” OR “QoL” OR “HRQoL”) AND (“Shortform questionnaire 36” OR “SF-36”) AND (“spinal cord injury” OR “SCI”) AND “Iran”, without time limitation. Observational studies evaluating HRQoL in patients with SCI were included. The HRQOL was assessed using the 36-item Short Form questionnaire (SF-36). The SF-36 has two main domains of Physical Component summary (PCS), and Mental Component summary (MCS). Based on the heterogeneity of the data, the data were analyzed by fixed and random effects models. Stata 14 was used to analyze the collected data.

Eight studies with a sample size of 848 SCI patients were included in the analysis. The mean scores of PCS and MCS of the subjects with SCI were 55.47% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 42.50 - 68.43) and 67.91% (95%CI: 59.18 - 76.64), respectively. The findings showed that the highest and the lowest scores of the subscales of HRQoL in both paraplegia and tetraplegia groups were related to physical functioning and social functioning, respectively. The mean score of eight subscales of HRQoL (except for social functioning) was higher in paraplegic patients than in those with tetraplegia.

Individuals with SCI had half of the total score of the physical dimension of HRQoL. Providing strategies for improving the HRQoL of Iranian people with SCI, especially in the physical aspect, seems necessary.