RT - Journal Article T1 - Comparison of health related quality of life between two groups of veteran and non-veteran spinal cord injured patients JF - MJIRI YR - 2015 JO - MJIRI VO - 29 IS - 1 UR - http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/article-1-2802-en.html SP - 318 EP - 324 K1 - Quality of Life K1 - Spinal Cord Injuries K1 - Veterans K1 - Iran. AB -   Background: Patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) have a lower health related quality of life (HRQOL) compared to both healthy controls and the normal population. The aim of this study was to compare HRQOL between two groups of veteran and non-veteran SCI patients.   Methods : All male paraplegic non-veterans who had sustained complete SCI before 1988 and were residents of Tehran province (Iran), and a similar group of SCI veterans who consecutively participated in a health screening program were enrolled in this study. Patients fewer than 35 and older than 65 years of age were not included in this study. The participants were interviewed based on the Persian version of SF-36 questionnaire by two psychologists. Eight sub-scales and two physical and mental component summaries of the instrument were assessed. We used chi-square, odds ratio, Mann-Whitney U, independent t-test and linear regression for analysis.   Results : Overall, 25 veterans and 22 non-veterans were enrolled in the study. The mean age, time since injury and the presence of comorbid illnesses were not significantly different between the two groups (P>0.05). A greater number of veterans were married (p= 0.003) and employed (p= 0.047). On average, veterans had more years of formal education than non-veterans (p= 0.001). The mean (SD) bodily pain sub-scale was 72.73(31.253) for non-veterans and 49.7(28.287) for veterans (p=0.011). Absence of comorbid illnesses was associated with a better physical component summary (p LA eng UL http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/article-1-2802-en.html M3 ER -