Quality Of Life and Associated Factors among Adult Patients ≥ 3 Months Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Western Uganda
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Date
2023-05
Authors
Kavuma Daniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kampala International University
Abstract
Introduction Traumatic brain injury is a major cause of disability and death, especially in individuals under the age 40 years. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) poses a great global public health problem yet it has been least attended to by researchers and policy makers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Survivors are left with temporary or permanent disabilities. Scientists, researchers and clinicians who work in the Traumatic brain injury rehabilitation field have appreciated the importance of an individual’s QoL as a critical indicator of the outcome following TBI. Research and clinical practice are now prioritizing on the QoL as an outcome measure. It is a useful frame of reference to measure outcome after TBI (Sukraeny et al., 2013). Objective: The main aim was to study the quality of life and its associated factors in adult patients 3 months and more following TBI at KIUTHWC, MRRH. Methods The research design was a hospital-based cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study of 217 head injury survivors admitted, managed and discharged at KIUTH-WC and MRRH. Both the baseline characteristics and QoL data were collected just once as participants were interviewed in the outpatient clinics and some via phone calls. Results 217 patients were enrolled and the mean age was 37 (SD=15.723), dominated by males (88.5%) and females (11.5%). Their median time after trauma was 12 months and median length of hospital stay was 6 days. With Qol, 63.6% had good Qol, and 14.7% had low QoL. The mean Qol was 75.7% (SD=21.03). The domains of Thinking, emotions, independence and autonomy had the most significant impact on the Qol. At Bivariate analysis, patients who were business people were 8 times more likely to have good quality of life following brain injury compared to farmers, cOR=0.12,95%CI 0.02-0.96. At Multivariate analysis, age, length of hospital stay, time after trauma were significant predictors of quality-of-life following Brain Injury. aOR=4.25, 95%CI 1.40-12.92 (Age), OR=13, 95%CI (0.02-0.34) for length after trauma. Conclusion It was found out that the majority of the participants were young and middle age who eventually contributed to an overall good Qol for this study. Time after trauma had the most significant impact on the quality of life after traumatic brain injury TBI given the fact that a longer time after TBI was sufficient for recovery. A long follow up period is thus associated with a better Qol as well as the ability of the survivors to return to their work and daily life activities.