Abstract
Objective: To determine the association between ongoing pain intensity and health-related quality of life in the elderly population after total knee arthroplasty.
Methodology: In this cross-sectional study, 118 patients were interviewed by using SF-12 and Visual analog scale (VAS) and non-probability convenient sampling. Participants were selected from different hospitals of Lahore in 4 months. The people who were 45 years or older, primarily diagnosed from osteoarthritis were included in the study.
Results: Mean age of patients was 65.61±6.80 years. We found that 26.3% were with no knee pain, 40.7% with mild pain, 32.2% with moderate pain and 0.8% of with severe pain on VAS. On SF-12 questionnaire, 21.2% of patients had poor quality of life whereas 78.8% of patients had better quality of life after surgery. Results on chi-square test showed significantly strong association between pain intensity and health-related quality of life (p=0.001).
Conclusion: Improvement in knee pain after total knee arthroplasty correlates well with improvement in physical and mental domains of health-related quality of life. Total knee arthroplasty successfully enhances the quality of life by minimizing pain and improving mobility in osteoarthritis patients.
