Relationship between Health Related Quality of Life Determinants and Type of Delivery in Saudi Women

Abstract

Background: This study was designed to evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of Saudi women who had undergone different types of delivery and to identify factors that significantly affect the HRQoL on these women. Materials and Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was performed at Ministry of health (MOH) centers - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36-item survey (SF-36) was used to assess HRQoL. For comparison, the HRQoL in an equal number of healthy individuals was investigated; multivariate analysis of variance was used for comparisons between groups. Results: Results showed that delivered women (case group) had significantly higher mean scores in the physical functioning, role-physical, vitality, role-emotional and mental health subscales. As regarding body pain, delivered women (case group) reported a significantly lower mean score than controls (Comparator group). Women who underwent caesarean section had significantly worse mean scores for all HRQoL domains, except for body pain, while the normal delivery women reported the highest HRQoL scores. Conclusion: The overall test statistic was statistically significant for the eight subscales, indicating that there was a correlation between type of delivery and HRQoL. Further prospective studies are warranted to confirm these results owing to the inherent limitations of the cross-sectional design and backward analysis of this study.