Health-related quality of life and life satisfaction in patients following surgically treated pelvic ring fractures. A prospective observational study with two years follow-up.

BACKGROUND Pelvic ring fractures caused by high-energy trauma are severe injuries with well described radiological and clinical outcomes, whereas description from the patient's perspective is less well documented. The purpose of this study was to investigate patient-reported outcome following surgical treatment of pelvic fractures using quality of life instruments. METHODS All 54 patients (28 male/26 female, ages 16-68) with pelvic fractures referred to our institution for surgical treatment 2003-2005 were prospectively included. The most common trauma was motor vehicle accident (44%). Additional injuries were seen in 74% and in 31% the ISS was >or=16. There were 31 B and 23 C type fractures. Patients were followed for two years using two validated questionnaires, SF-36 and LiSat-11, the latter an instrument consisting of 11 questions for evaluation of satisfaction with different aspects of life. RESULTS 45 patients could be followed according to the study protocol for two years while 2 were untraceable and 1 died from unrelated causes. Of 6 nonresponders, 5 were unable due to psychiatric disorder. At two years pelvic fracture patients scored lower than the reference population in both physical and mental domains (SF-36). Highest mean score, 68, was in the domain Social Function (norm 89) while lowest mean score, 38, was in the domain Role Physical (norm 86). The mean score closest to the normative was for general health with 61 for patients and 78 for the normative group. In LiSat-11 pelvic fracture patients scored lower than the reference population in all areas. Satisfaction with life as a whole was 31% compared with 60% in the normative group. CONCLUSIONS Two years after surgical treatment of pelvic ring fractures, patients reported substantially lower quality of life for both physical and mental domains, when compared with a reference population, even when radiological and clinical outcomes were considered favourable.