A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG PEOPLE LIVING WITH DISABILITY BEFORE AND AFTER ASSISTIVE DEVICE USE
Catherin Nisha* and Deepthi N Shanbhag
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Disability affects physical health, social relationship of people, life in the realms of family, friends, and neighbours, psychological state, and level of independence. The consequences of disability can have an impact at personal, interpersonal, family and social levels. This study attempts to compare the QOL (quality of life) among people living with disability before and after assistive device use and other associated factors among them. Materials and Methods: A longitudinal study was conducted in Bangalore urban district, Karnataka, India from January 2014 to December 2015. A total of 57 disabled persons were included in the study. WHO BREF questionnaire was used to assess QOL of the study participants. Questionnaire was administered on disabled persons prior to assistive device delivery and after six months of use. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 23.77±17.4 years. There was statistically significant difference between the means in physical and environmental domain of QOL after the intervention. There was no statistically significant difference in QOL before and after the intervention when total scores of all the domains were considered. There was no statistically significant difference in the QOL between different socio economic statuses of the respondents. Conclusion: After intervention there was statistically significant difference in the better QOL in the physical and environmental domain. QOL was found poor among respondents in the psychological domain as compared to other domains. This could be mainly because of their physical appearance, which makes them refrain from the participation in social gatherings and family functions.
Keywords: Disability, QOL, WHO BREF, assistive devices.
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