Assessment of quality of life in relation to spasticity severity and socio-demographic and clinical factors among patients with spinal cord injury.

To assess the impact of spasticity severity as well as socio-demographic and clinical factors on quality of life (QOL) and to identify factors predicting poor QOL among patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) Descriptive cross-sectional study. Tertiary care clinic in Istanbul, Turkey. A total of 110 patients with SCI (mean (SD) age: 43.8 (14.7) years, 58.2% were males) were enrolled. The American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (AIS), Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS) and Turkish version of the World Health Organization Quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) were utilized to determine the SCI category, severity of spasticity and QOL scores, respectively. The WHOQOL-BREF scores were evaluated with respect to the severity of spasticity, aetiology and duration of SCI, AIS category and method of bladder management. The mean (SD) physical health (41.9 (15.3) vs. 46.5 (10.9), P = 0.029), social relationships (45.6 (20.2) vs. 53.8 (17.3), P = 0.025) and total WHOQOL-BREF scores were significantly lower in patients with more severe spasticity. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that severity of spasticity was a significant predictor of decreased WHOQOL-BREF total scores, physical domain scores and social relations domain scores by 11.381 (P = 0.007), 11.518 (P = 0.005) and 17. 965 (P = 0.004), respectively. In conclusion, addressing QOL in relation to severity of spasticity for the first time among Turkish SCI patients, our findings revealed a negative impact of the spasticity severity on the WHOQOL-BREF scores, particularly for physical health and social relationship domains.