Quality of Life of Patients With Major Amputations in the Tertiary Care Center of Western Rajasthan: A Prospective Observational Study in 2019-2020

Abstract

Introduction Amputation of a limb is a loss of physical integrity that has disastrous consequences for a person's mental, physical, and social well-being. Aim We aim to analyze the quality of life (QoL) after major amputations and long-term outcomes. Method and materials A prospective, observational study has been conducted in a health care institute in western Rajasthan from January 2019 to July 2020. This study included 64 patients who had major upper or lower limb amputations. We analyzed the sociodemographic factors of the patients, the type of procedure, postoperative hospital stay, complications, and follow-up status with both the SF-12 and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF questionnaires. Mean, median, range, standard deviation, percentages, univariable, and multivariable logistic regression were analyzed with SPSS version 23.0 software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results The mean age of the study patients was 53.6 years (SD 2.6) and they were mostly male (71.9%). Atherosclerotic peripheral vascular disease (PVD) was the most common indication (37.5%) of amputation, and below-the-knee amputation (46.88%) was the most commonly performed procedure. There was a significant increment in both PCS (p-value= 0.001), MCS scores (p-value=0.0001) of SF-12 and physical (p-value=0.0001) and psychological domains (p-value=0.001) of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire in the postoperative period. A total of 83.9% of patients have used prostheses, and 15.6% had mortality. Conclusions Major amputations can significantly affect the quality of life of patients, and all efforts should be made to avoid factors that adversely affect their quality of life.