1.1 Background
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is considered as an important
outcome measure and aims to measure how the individual’s functions are
affected by the disease and changes in their functions. These
subdimensions usually determine whether there is a lack of physical,
psychological or social functions8.
It is useful to determine health-related quality of life in order to
specify health care and treatment strategies, to make patient -specific
planning, and to evaluate the effectiveness of health care and
treatment12. Many bodily functions of stroke patients
are affected adversely, and therefore evaluation of the quality of life
of stroke patients carries utmost importance.
The concept of quality of life (QOL) is defined as a multidimensional
concept that includes physical, psychological / spiritual and
socio-economic well-being13. QOL is a complex concept
involving highly subjective parameters and there is no common
measurement tool. Although there are approximately 5000 disease-specific
generic scales, a universal scale for quality of life assessment is
lacking7.
Health-related quality of life instruments are widely used to measure
disease burden, to assess treatment modality, and to facilitate
comparative evaluations14.
Subjective effects of stroke cannot be evaluated by objective
measurement tools. For this reason, the health-related quality of life
of stroke patients is evaluated using many measurement tools that assess
subjective well-being which are quite widely employed in evaluations of
health state of the patients in recent years8, 15, 16.
Generic or specifically standardized scales are being used to evaluate
objective quality of life in stroke. The most common generic quality of
life scales used in stroke are Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) and Short
form-36. However, disease-specific scales developed in recent years have
been frequently used in studies to assess the quality of life of these
patients17.
In studies where stroke-related quality of life has been evaluated,
frequently disease-specific SSQOL scale has been used9,
19-21.
It has been reported that assessments made with disease-specific scales
measure the patient’s physical functions and well-being better than the
generic scales. Because they have been prepared considering the symptoms
of the disease so as to obtain more specific measurement
results17,22.
SF-36 and SSQOL scales were used together in validity
studies9 and in patients suffering from aneurysmal
subarachnoid hemorrhage for the purpose of comparative
evaluation14. However, we haven’t encountered any
study that compared the SSQOL with other similar scales in stroke
patients. This study was performed to compare the Turkish version of the
SSQOL with the less frequently used SF- 36 scales to determine HRQOL in
stroke patients, to evaluate the effectiveness of both scales and to
assess whether these two scales differ according to sociodemographic
characteristics of stroke patients.
2. METHODS