Mathur Sachin, Bartlett Adam St J R, Gilkison William, Krishna Govind
Department of Surgery, Whangarei Base Hospital, Northland, New Zealand.
ANZ J Surg. 2006 Jun;76(6):491-3. doi: 10.1111/j.1445-2197.2006.03746.x.
The natural history of untreated inguinal hernia (IH) is poorly understood. Whether a delay in operative repair of IH leads to excessive physical suffering or significant psychosocial impairment is not known. This study attempts to quantify the morbidity of patients with IH by assessing their quality of life (QOL) while on a waiting list for IH surgery.
QOL was measured in adult patients with IH who were on the waiting list using a standardized SF-36 questionnaire. Scores were compared with a sample of age-, sex- and comorbidity-matched controls.
A total of 143 patients were identified, of which 106 were included in the study. Patients with IH had significantly impaired QOL compared with comorbidity- and demographic-matched controls across all of the domains measured. Subgroup analysis showed an inverse relationship between the size of the IH and the QOL and patients employed in manual work tended to have lower QOL compared with those with sedentary vocations.
In conclusion, we showed that the SF-36 score is a good measure of QOL in this patient group. Those patients on the elective waiting list for repair of IH have a significantly impaired QOL compared with age-, sex- and comorbidity-matched controls.
未经治疗的腹股沟疝（IH）的自然病史了解甚少。IH手术修复延迟是否会导致过度的身体痛苦或严重的心理社会损害尚不清楚。本研究试图通过评估等待IH手术患者的生活质量（QOL）来量化IH患者的发病率。
使用标准化的SF-36问卷对等待名单上的成年IH患者的QOL进行测量。将得分与年龄、性别和合并症匹配的对照组样本进行比较。
共确定了143例患者，其中106例纳入研究。与所有测量领域中合并症和人口统计学匹配的对照组相比，IH患者的QOL显著受损。亚组分析显示，IH的大小与QOL呈负相关，从事体力劳动的患者与从事久坐职业的患者相比，QOL往往较低。
总之，我们表明SF-36评分是该患者群体QOL的一个良好指标。与年龄、性别和合并症匹配的对照组相比，等待择期修复IH的患者的QOL显著受损。
