Quality of Life in Persons Living With an Ostomy Assessed Using the SF36v2: Mental Component Summary: Vitality, Social Function, Role-Emotional, and Mental Health.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the Mental Health Component of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in community-dwelling persons with ostomies residing in the United States.

Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.

Subjects And Setting: 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. Fifty-three percent of study respondents were male. Respondents had a median age of 65 years. Forty percent have colostomies, 44% are living with ileostomies, and 13% have urostomies. The remaining 3% are living with multiple stomas or they indicated that they were uncertain as to the type of stoma.

Instrument: The SF36v2 was used to assess HRQOL. This instrument was selected because it has the ability to measure HRQOL in a target population and it allows comparison with the general population.

Methods: Potential participants were randomly selected from an electronic database of 15,591 persons with ostomies. They were contacted by e-mails and provided with an electronic nontransferable link to the survey. This is a secondary analysis of findings from the Mental Component Summary (MCS) of the SF36v2.

Results: Persons who have undergone ostomy surgery did not score as well as the general population when components of the MCS were compared. While overall differences were identified, they differed based on age and cumulative MCS score levels. Analysis of individuals found to have significant impairment in MCS scores (cumulative soccer <40) tended to report less negative response than persons with comparable scores in the general population. Analysis also revealed that respondents aged 55 years or older had mental component domain scores that remained with the normal range of the general population. In contrast, participants who were younger than 55 years had lower scores that the general population.

Conclusions: The overall MCS score of community-dwelling persons living with ostomies as lower than scores generated from the general population. However, these findings varied based on age and cumulative MCS score.