[Quality of life, psychological distress, and social outcomes after radical prostatectomy. Results from a urology competence center for rehabilitation].

BACKGROUND

Quality of life is an important parameter for quality assurance of the results. After radical prostatectomy, quality of life is often limited. The degree of urinary incontinence correlates significantly with quality of life.

RESULTS

Oncological and functional results are significantly decreased with the age of the patients. On the other hand, the psychological distress of younger patients is significantly greater than in the elderly. In the relative short period of 3-4 weeks of an inpatient rehabilitation in our urology competence center for rehabilitation, the mean decrease of urinary loss (24-h pad test) was 44.4 %. Psychological distress also decreased significantly as measured by the questionnaire on psychological distress FBK-R10 (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

With this, quality of life significantly increased in all function and symptom scales of the QLQ-C30. Thus, this makes reintegration into social life easier. The return to work rate of employed persons after our specific urological rehabilitation program following radical prostatectomy was 87 %.