title: Comparison of quality of life in low back pain patients and healthy subjects by using WHOQOL-BREF.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Low back pain and consequence disability is one of the most prevalence musculoskeletal disorders that human being ever had involved. Quality of life is a multidimensional concept and is beyond absolute physical health. In this study, we compared QOL between low back pain patients and healthy people using WHOQOL-BREF which is a generic and overall instrument.
  
  
  METHODS
  This descriptive-analytic study was carried out on 256 low back pain patients and healthy people in Shahid Beheshti Hospital, Babol. They filled out the questionnaires personally and the scores of different domains in two groups were compared. WHOQOL-BREF has four domains of physical health, psychological health, social relations and environment health. The range of scores in each of these domains is from 4-20. The two questions are about the general quality of life and general health. Overall, a higher score indicates better quality of life.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The participants' age range was from 18 to 63 with the mean ± SD of 36.63 ± 10.99. The scores of these four domains and general quality of life and general health of WHOQOL-BREF were lower in low back pain patients. These differences were statistically significant in physical health and environmental health.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Lower QOL in low back pain patients necessitate doing some interventions such as education and rehabilitation in this group. This indicates the importance of more attention to these patients to plan future treatments in order to reinforce these domains.
authors.affiliation: Motion Disorders Research Center, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Taghipour
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Darzi
authors.affiliation: Iranian Research Center of Aging, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Samaneh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pourhadi
authors.affiliation: Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Somayeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hosseinzadeh
authors.affiliation: Amirkola Non-Communicable Pediatric Diseases Research Center, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahmood Haji
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Ahmadi
authors.affiliation: Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dadian
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D004782:Environmental Health; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D066252:Sociological Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014944:World Health Organization; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Low back pain; World Health Organization questionnaire; quality of life