Factors affecting health-related quality of life one year after lumbar spinal fusion

To identify preoperative factors that affect the medical outcome study 36-item short form health survey (SF-36) score 1 year after lumbar spinal fusion.

Participants were selected from among 624 patients who underwent lumbar spinal fusion between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2011 who were followed up for 1 year or more. The SF-36 version 2 was used to evaluate HRQOL. The following preoperative parameters were investigated: sex, age, body mass index (BMI), employment status (other than home-making), living with other family members, smoking, orthopedic disorder in another part of the body (other than lumbar spinal disease), history of lumbar spinal surgery, bladder function, and leg muscle strength.

94 patients were included. None of the independent preoperative factors exhibited a high degree of correlation, and the absence of multicollinearity was confirmed before further analysis was performed. The first canonical variates were age and leg muscle strength, which had a major effect on physical functioning, role physical, and role emotional 1 year after surgery, and the second canonical variates were employment status, sex, and orthopedic disorder in another part of the body, which had a major effect on general health 1 year after surgery.

The SF-36 score 1 year after lumbar spinal fusion was affected by the preoperative factors of age, leg muscle strength, living with other family members, employment status, sex, and orthopedic disorders in another part of the body.