The relations between social support, life stress, and quality of life following spinal decompression surgery

Assessed social support, life stress, and quality of life among degenerative spine disease patients.

To examine how social support and life stress relate to quality of life following spinal decompression surgery among patients with degenerative spine disease.

Neurosurgical clinic at Saint Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

A total of 19 patients with degenerative spine disease who had undergone spinal decompression surgery within the past 14 months filled out social support, life stress, and quality of life questionnaires. Correlational techniques were used to assess the relations among the variables.

The correlations between social support scores and health-related and nonhealth-related quality of life scores were r=0.72, P=0.001, and r=0.50, P=0.028, respectively. The correlations between life stress scores and health-related and nonhealth-related quality of life scores were r=-0.83, P<0.001, and r=-0.72, P=0.001, respectively.

Degenerative spine disease patients experiencing more social support and less life stress tend to report greater satisfaction in medical outcome and overall quality of life following spinal decompression surgery than those with less social support and more life stress. Assessing social support and life stress in patients with degenerative spine disease and including a consideration of social support and life stress in the management of patients with degenerative spine disease could help to improve patients' satisfaction with their medical outcome and general quality of life following spinal decompression surgery.