Quality of life in US residents with ostomies as assessed using the SF36v2

The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of life of the adult US ostomy population (18 years of age or older).

Cross-sectional descriptive study.

Potential participants were randomly selected from an electronic database of 15,591 persons with ostomies. Potential respondents were contacted by e-mail and provided with an electronic nontransferable secured link to the survey. Two thousand three hundred twenty-nine participants completed the survey for a response rate of 14.9% and a margin of error of 2.03%. Study respondents were geographically distributed throughout the United States, representing all 50 states. Males comprised 53% of the study respondents; the median age of participants was 65 years, with 67% of the study respondents between the ages of 50 and 74 years. Forty percent had a colostomy, 44% had an ileostomy, 13% had a urostomy, 1% had multiple stomas, and 1% were unsure of their stoma type.

Health-related quality of life was evaluated using the SF36v2 survey instrument. This instrument was selected because of its ability to measure health-related quality of life in a sample of community-dwelling people with stomas and reference the data against a general population.

The data presented a broad profile of the adult ostomy population in the United States. The average physical component summary score for the ostomy sample fell below the average for the US general population, while the average mental component summary (MCS) score fell within the average range of the US population. Analysis revealed that physical component summary scores decrease as age categories increase; however, MCS scores increased proportionally with age, suggesting that the health burden is primarily associated with physical health status, and not mental health status.

Study findings suggest that the ostomy population demonstrates successful aging similar to the US general population. This is most noticeable at age categories greater than 55 years where increasing MCS scores for males and females fell in the range equivalent to the average of the US general population.